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Dave Thomson stands amid discarded trash at a homeless camp in East Multnomah County.

(Kelly House/The Oregonian)

When your neighbor feeds his backyard chickens last night's leftover pork and beans, then lets the stinking slop sit out for several days, it's Dave Thomson's job to mediate the dispute.

When an unknown assailant repeatedly defecates in McDonald's drink cups and throws them on the side of the road in your neighborhood, Thomson investigates.

When a resident decides to fill potholes on his unpaved road with crushed glass, Thomson comes knocking on their door.

And the list goes on.

As Multnomah County's lone code enforcement officer, Thomson's days are spent dealing with matters nobody else wants to touch. On a given day, he might encounter cockroach infestations, hoarder houses, or residents who have let their front lawns become junkyards of broken-down cars and castaway appliances.

He also spends a lot of time enforcing Portland's codes for urban chickens, bees, llamas and sheep.

"You wear shoes you don't mind getting covered in muck," he said.

A new plan announced by Multnomah County Chair Marissa Madrigal in February would require the city to start paying its share of Thomson's time. But that accounting switch won't change his unusual duties one bit.

Thomson is relentlessly polite, a trait that serves him well when dealing with disgruntled residents who just got caught violating the county code. He starts the conversation by assuring them that, as long as they clean up the issue, they won't be fined.

"If you hear from me again, don't stress out," he tells the man whose neighbor has complained about the smell coming from his backyard chickens and rabbits.

Out of roughly 1,600 calls Thomson makes each year, he estimates fewer than 20 result in fines.

"It's the last tool in our toolbox," he said.

Illegal dumpers are an exception to that rule.

Sniffing out the culprit

Investigating illegal dump sites is Thomson's "personal priority." These hidden morasses of trash are scattered throughout the county, collecting everything from household refuse, to dead marijuana plants, to roofing supplies. If he catches the culprit, he almost always issues a fine.

"It's the ultimate act of selfishness," he said. "They're saying 'I don't care if I'm wrecking this pristine beautiful area, I'm just doing it because it's convenient to me.'"

But catching illegal dumpers is difficult. There usually aren't witnesses, so Thomson digs through the trash for clues. A prescription bottle or piece of junk mail left in a pile of garbage can lead him to the culprit. And when evidence falls short, he has been known to conduct stakeouts.

The "poop cup caper" played out for three years before Thomson caught the perpetrators, an elderly couple who never explained to him why they routinely discarded feces-filled McDonald's drink cups on the side of the road near Corbett.

From code enforcement to law enforcement

Occasionally, Thomson's job crosses the line from code enforcement into law enforcement. He once nabbed a criminal's license plate number as the man fled the home of an elderly woman he had just tried to molest. Thomson keeps a police scanner in his car, and heard chatter on the radio about the crime. He had just parked nearby when the suspect drove right past him.



Another time, Thomson found two dead bodies in a roadside ditch while he was scanning for trash along Corbett's N.E. Palmer Mill Road. The man and woman, victims of a drug deal gone awry, had been dead for about two weeks.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw them," he said.

Then there was the time he stumbled across a marijuana grow in the East County floodplains. The grower, afraid Thomson would report the operation to police, offered a cut of the profits as gag money. Thomson politely refused, then drove away. He returned with two sheriff's deputies to pluck out all the seedlings.

Last week, Thomson went on a "mission" with county sheriff's officers as they cleared a homeless encampment at the Sandy River Delta recreation area. The officers ordered campers to vacate; Thomson looked for hazardous waste.

As he peeked under a makeshift tent the campers use as a toilet, Thomson reflected on his job. He knows the gig isn't glamorous, but he enjoys the variety, and the heavy caseload makes days pass quickly.

"This is just a slice of heaven," he said. "If you ever have a bad day at work, just think: You could be taking pictures of people's waste."

--Kelly House