photo by: Karen Dillon

Douglas County filed a lawsuit against Linda Fritz, the owner of the 1890 schoolhouse on County Route 1055, pictured here on Friday, May 6, 2016. The county's petition calls it a junk yard and a nuisance.

Douglas County commissioners are asking a Douglas County District Court judge to immediately issue an order to stop a family from operating a “junk yard” at the Fairview No. 21 schoolhouse south of Lawrence.

The petition requesting a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction order or both was filed last week by Jeffrey Heiman of Stevens and Brand LLP law firm, which does legal work for the county.

The petition calls the property a “junk yard” and describes it as “dangerous” and a “nuisance” that could harm the health, welfare and safety of other residents, in addition to encouraging others to violate the county’s zoning regulations.

It’s an unusual step for the county, whose code-enforcement philosophy in recent years has been to work with violators rather than to penalize them.

Linda Fritz, the owner of the rural schoolhouse built in 1890, received a summons Thursday directing her to respond to the county’s allegations within 21 days, according to court records.

Fritz does not live at the schoolhouse on County Route 1055. Her daughter Anne Speicher and son-in-law David Sharon moved into the wood-frame building last summer with their 7-year-old son. Summons also have been issued to the couple.

For the past year, the county has received dozens of complaints as more and more junk appeared in the yard, from old cars and tires, machinery, vehicle motor parts and yard equipment to house furnishings, appliances, dilapidated toys, building materials and discarded materials.

Fritz has said she has tried to get the couple to clean up the mess, but Sharon says he is disabled and cannot do a lot of work.

On Friday, Fritz told the Journal-World that she hoped the situation could be resolved amicably. A dumpster had been placed in the yard to aid cleanup, and she she said she thought the couple was making progress in getting the mess cleaned up.

“They have cleaned up a lot of stuff,” she said.

But a drive by the property on Friday showed more junk accumulating, including vehicles that had not been there previously.

Sarah Plinsky, assistant county administrator, declined to comment on Friday.

The county has zoning regulations to “promote health, safety, morals, comfort or the general welfare, and to conserve and protect property values throughout Douglas County,” the petition says.

The county’s petition says the family has violated at least two zoning regulations, one that oversees the operation of junk yards and another that deals with property that becomes a nuisance.

Under county regulations, a junk yard is defined as property where “discarded materials, house furnishings, machinery, motor vehicles are stored.” The regulations say those types of materials left on agricultural or residential property for more than one week constitute a junk or salvage yard.

The county has repeatedly asked the family to clean up the junk over several months, the petition says.

Speicher and Sharon have told the county they realize they are in violation, but have failed to clean up the mess, the petition says.

“In fact, it appears that Defendants Speicher and Sharon have actually collected and stored additional junk and salvage materials upon the Property since March 2016,” the county said. “Unless Defendants are temporarily, preliminarily, and permanently enjoined from violating the Zoning Regulations by the operation of a junk or salvage yard, Douglas County and the citizens thereof will be irreparably harmed.”

County regulations define a nuisance as “anything which is dangerous to or violates the health, peace, or welfare of any citizen of Douglas County.”

The petition says that the county on April 5 sent Fritz a written abatement notice that gave the family until April 18 to clean up the property and also had a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy serve the couple with the written abatement notice.

But so far the couple have refused to comply, the petition says.

The petition asks that a judge issue an order for the couple to immediately remove and remediate the junk or to authorize the county to remove the junk and remediate the property and charge the family a reasonable cost for the county’s work.