Lisa Martin, an inspector with St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections, takes a photo of a squirrel in a garbage bin as she checks out sites of complaints in St. Paul on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. She said squirrels are a big problem. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Lisa Martin, an inspector with St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections, checks out complaints in St. Paul Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. She takes a photo and sends a summary abatement letter to the owner which informs them they need to clean up all the garbage. "We give them seven days to clean up," she says. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Lisa Martin, left, an inspector with St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections, talks with John Beesley about his complaint regarding garbage strewn near his home in St. Paul on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. He said it is an eyesore and the squirrels get into the food and drop it all over his yard -- "the old country buffet." He said he has made complaints in the past and "typically something gets done in a week." (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

A squirrel feasts on garbage at the site of a complaint checked out by Lisa Martin, an inspector with St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections, on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

While out checking on complaints, Lisa Martin, an inspector with St. Paul's Department of Safety and Inspections, stopped her car when she saw grocery carts in a yard in St. Paul on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. She said she plans to call the stores to have them get their carts. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)



An abandoned love seat rest on the sidewalk on Charles Ave. near Grotto St. in St. Paul on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. On average, 76 complaints are made to the city of St. Paul each day. Garbage almost always tops the list, but the complaints can range from potholes to graffiti to the bad paint job on a neighborÕs home. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A pair of abandoned or wrecked vehicles are parked on Beech Street and Forest Street in St. Paul on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. In the past three years, there were close 84,000 nuisance complaints to the city. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A bag of trash lays torn in boulevard along Edmund Avenue near Western Avenue in St. Paul on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Garbage almost always tops the list of nuisance complaints made to the city. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

A year ago Thursday, 14 St. Paulites complained about unattended garbage. Another six complained about abandoned vehicles. Among the rest of the complaints there were five for dumping, three over the exterior of a building and one on street maintenance. In total, the city received 52 complaints.

That’s below the average of 76 complaints made to the city of St. Paul each day by email or phone or through a form on the city’s website. Garbage almost always tops the list, but the complaints can range from potholes to graffiti to the bad paint job on a neighbor’s home.

Responding to these complaints is the job of the 11 inspectors with the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections. They send warnings, visit property owners and follow up for compliance, according to department spokesman Robert Humphrey.

The Pioneer Press crunched the data on 84,000 complaints to find what irks the residents of St. Paul most often.

WHAT ARE THE COMPLAINTS?

The No. 1 complaint in the city is garbage.

“That’s such a broad category — it encompasses so many things,” Humphrey said. It could be anything from a single tire left along a street to an entire yard full of litter.

Exterior complaints — such as peeling paint on the outside of a house or a poor outdoor repair job — and unmowed grass are the second- and third-most-complained-about issues. Combined, those three issues account for nearly half of the nearly 84,000 complaints the city has received in the past three years,

Other frequent complaints include abandoned vehicles, sidewalks covered with snow, dumping, parking problems and graffiti.

WHO IS COMPLAINING?

Most St. Paul complaints are based in the city’s northern and northeastern neighborhoods. District 5, the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, leads the city in complaints with more than 13,000 in the past three years. Humphrey said he had no idea why that might be.

Nearby Districts 2, 4, 6 and 7 (which includes the Greater East Side, Dayton’s Bluff, North End and Frogtown neighborhoods) each had between 7,000 and 9,000.

The city’s remaining districts all had fewer than 5,000 complaints over the three-year span.

The Summit Hill and St. Anthony Park areas, Districts 16 and 12, complained least often.

Three residences accounted for more than 100 of the complaints between 2015 and 2017: an 11-unit apartment complex on Maria Avenue, a home on East Cook Avenue, and a house on East Minnehaha Avenue.

WHEN ARE THEY COMPLAINING?

Most of the complaints from the past three years came in during the summer, specifically in June.

* Data does not show complete numbers for December.

Garbage complaints are more likely to come in March — the same month most complaints about unshoveled walkways end.

“Code enforcement agreed that the last few years we’ve had pretty early springs,” Humphrey said. “When the snow starts to melt, people start calling in.”

HOW DOES THE CITY RESPOND?

For garbage complaints, the process takes about 10 days.

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St. Paul man threatened another man with a sword, charges say The complaint comes in the first day, and the second day the location is inspected. If garbage is found, the person responsible for cleaning it has seven days. (For smelly garbage, the time period is shortened). On day nine, an inspector returns to ensure the mess was cleared.

If the property’s been cleaned, the owner avoids a write-up. If not, a crew is sent to clean up the property, and the owner is billed for the cost of the work.

“And it’s not cheap,” Humphrey said. A typical cleanup might cost several hundreds of dollars. The bigger the mess, the bigger the price.

With other complaints, the inspection process is quicker. As soon as the complaint comes in, a letter is automatically sent to the address. For a snowy sidewalk complaint, a homeowner has 48 hours to shovel. They have 72 hours to mow tall grass. An inspector will stop by to check for compliance.

The high number of garbage complaints and the longer inspection process means inspectors spend more than half their time dealing with trash. The city spends at least $317,000 annually just to pay Department of Safety and Inspection employees to respond to garbage complaints.

HOW DO I SUBMIT A COMPLAINT?

Complaints can be submitted via phone, email or online form. Contact the city at 651-266-8989 or DSIComplaints@ci.stpaul.mn.us, or visit stpaul.gov to report an incident.