Ledger Inquirer: Overgrown right of way presents problems

A Concerned Couple lives on Papaya Drive in Columbus in a house that, like many on the street, backs up to a Georgia Power right of way.

Their problem is that the right of way gets so overgrown with brush and vines that it threatens to spread into their yard, which is very beautifully tended. Our Concerned Husband is in his 70s, retired military and has some back issues, so he can't take care of their large, sloping lawn as he once did. He hires that work out and the yard guy occasionally goes on the other side of the fence and cuts back a strip of the heavy undrebrush so it doesn't take over.

But that isn't free, or even cheap.

His Concerned Wife has been after the city and/or Georgia Power to do something about the problem for some time, but she has had no success.

"They just tell me to be patient," she said.

It would be easier to be patient if it weren't for the fact that the right of way on the other side of the lake behind their property seems to be much better tended.

I called my friend Robert Wadkins with Georgia Power, and he explained that the company does tend to the rights of way, but they only do each one every three years.

"We can't do it more often than that," he said. "It's very expensive."

They cut it back pretty thoroughly, Wadkins said, down to just a few inches. But it's never going to look like an Augusta National fairway.

If adjacent homeowners want to cut the brush back more often than that and tend to the land as much as they want, they're welcome to do so, Wadkins said. And that may be what's happening on the other side of the lake.

But every three years is all Georgia Power can guarantee.

Our Concerned Wife hopes their three-year turn is about to come up because she believes that some bad young people are using the overgrowth as a hiding place, which she believes has contributed to several break-ins in the neighborhood lately.

Stay tuned.

Update

Speaking of overgrowth, I was in the neighborhood last week so I drove by Bishop Drive, where we recently reported on a patch of kudzu that was growing out of a piece of city property and threatening a Concerned Neighbor's yard.

The city said they could not clear the entire lot, which isn't really a lot. But it would clear the right of way and spray the kudzu with herbicide.

They weren't lying. They went Old Testament on the brush on the right of way.

I don't know what kind of bush hog type rig they used, but maybe they could lend it to the folks over on Papaya Drive.

-- Seen something that needs attention? Contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published June 28, 2015 at 10:32 PM with the headline "Ledger Inquirer: Overgrown right of way presents problems."