P.G. assesses a homeowner $50,000 after seven years of neighbor complaints.

Just steps from the Pacific Grove Butterfly Sanctuary sits a quiet cul-de-sac of small townhomes built about 65 years ago called Grove Colony. While most homes are well kept, the first unit looks tired. Overgrown shrubbery blocks the path, and the porch is covered with a jumble of living and dead potted plants and a mini-maze of unopened packages. A peek inside the windows at the top of the door reveals a knee-high mound of trash in the entryway. Yet turn around, and there’s a view of the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Neighbors say the home at 246 Grove Acre Ave., co-owned by Anne Bethel and her family’s trust, has been a blight on the neighborhood since at least 2010, when they could tell the house was filled floor to ceiling with appliances, personal items and trash. They believe Bethel has been hoarding for many years, possibly since she inherited the home from her mother in 2004. Bethel denies the accusation. She says someone broke into the home and ransacked it, and blames trouble with contractors, as well as medical issues.

He snapped a photo of a rat sitting just inside the window.

“It’s been a real thorn in our side,” says Christopher Bartos, president of the Grove Colony Homeowners Association.

Blighted homes are a vexing problem for local governments as well. City Manager Ben Harvey says it’s a difficult process to navigate, with requirements like waiting specified periods of time to allow homeowners a chance to respond to notices. “And before you know it’s months and even years later,” Harvey says, before issues are resolved.

In 2010, the previous HOA president Bob Brooks contacted the Monterey County Health Department, which declared the home unlivable. Brooks filed a formal complaint with Pacific Grove in May 2011, after which a code enforcement officer inspected the exterior seven times through December 2011. Despite evidence of blight, the city attorney said there was not enough for a warrant to enter the interior, according to a city report.

In 2015, neighbors told the city Bethel’s front door wouldn’t close and the house was infested with rodents, living and dead. Bartos snapped a photo of a rat sitting on its haunches just inside a front window, it’s paws touching the side jamb.

The city stepped up efforts to contact Bethel, who did respond at least twice, but otherwise ignored contacts. When the city held an administrative hearing on June 22, 2016, Bethel did not show up. She was ordered to pay nearly $17,000 in fines, plus $100 a day until the home came into compliance. The fines now total more than $50,000, and on Dec. 6 the City Council voted to assess her home for that amount, and the home continues to accrue fines of $100 a day.

Bethel says she travels between Pacific Grove and Castro Valley where she owns another home. (An Alameda County zoning official says that house has “minor” compliance issues, declining to go into further detail.)

The Grove Acre home is set to go to Bethel’s nephew when he retires. “And when he comes down I can move back in with him when we get all this work done,” Bethel says.

In the meantime, P.G. Code Compliance Officer Terri Schaeffer says the city will place a lien on the home to help recoup city costs, and may obtain a warrant to go inside and eventually clean out the house if Bethel does nothing.

“Will they do it?” Brooks says. “I’m not holding my breath after seven and a half years.”