Cesar Rodriguez doesn't even live on Christian Street.

But there he was Wednesday morning, raking up trash in Seventh Alley, which runs off Christian between the 500 blocks of Green and Woodward streets.

Rodriguez, who lives on the first block of Howard Avenue, owns a storage garage halfway down the alley. But he doesn't clean up his own space. Every day he spends time cleaning up the alley all the way from his garage to Christian Street.

"There are good people living here," he said. "But some ...

"And some people have haulers but the haulers dump the trash here," he said, most likely to avoid paying tipping fees at the transfer station.

Asked why he sticks to his daily routine, he smiled, "It makes me feel good. I like something clean."

That is music to John Cotton's ears.

Cotton and Linda Duschl are the city's SWEEP (Solid Waste Education and Enforcement Program) officers. They walk the city every day to get residents to address problems that negatively impact quality of life.

In the last two months, they have issued more than 2,000 "friendly reminders" for visible housing code violations. Those "reminders" include written tags on doorknobs, face-to-face interactions, phone calls and mailings.

In July, some of those reminders will become $25 tickets when the city's new "administrative ticket" program begins. At public meetings, people have expressed concerns about what types of violations will earn tickets.

Mike Devaney, the city's solid waste recycling manager, stressed, "We are not out to punish.

"We will educate, we will educate, and we will educate until we can educate no more."

That "no more" is where the ticket comes in.

Health and safety
For Cotton, that point involves problems that affect public health and safety.

Piles of trash that harbor rodents. Abandoned tires whose insides are home to stagnant water and mosquitoes. Mattresses and stuffed furniture — fire hazards — on porches.

"And if I take notice that there's a child near these situations, I turn up the heat," he noted.

Duschl carried with her a stack of photos taken after a recent fire in the 100 block of Howard Avenue. There, a mattress on a porch caught fire, forcing three people to jump from an overhanging roof. All three were injured and three houses and two parked vehicles were damaged.

As if on cue, the two officers noticed a woman in Seventh Alley seated on a back stoop, smoking a cigarette next to a mattress propped against the house.

Duschl leaned over the back fence and asked the woman if they could talk.

Duschl showed her the pictures, and the woman seemed taken aback by what she saw. It was a brief but amiable conversation.

"I think she gets it," Duschl said. "She looked at the pictures and said she'd take care of it."

Cotton smiled. "This is the friendly approach, this is what we do. There's no script here."

The facts
Devaney and the SWEEP officers are quick to dispel two theories. The first involves landlords.

"There are a lot of folks who think we are picking on landlords," he said. "But there are a lot of owner-occupied [properties] who don't handle their waste either."

A group of landlords attended public hearings on the ticket ordinance, and others have met to discuss possible ways to fight it. Officials, Devaney said, met with about 10 landlords following the bill's passage to discuss its implementation.

The landlords' main concern, Devaney said, is being held responsible for their tenants' actions. "They would like to see the tickets issued to the tenants themselves," he explained.

Devaney said at the meeting with those landlords, "we told them to put a clause in the lease that basically says, 'If I get a ticket, you get a ticket.' "

Devaney said he believes, "If you purchase a property and take on the responsibility to rent it out to someone else, you need to hold that person responsible."

Devaney would like to post a placard in every rental unit that contains information on trash pickup requirements.

On the 200 block of East Ross Street, the exteriors of the houses are tidy and well-kept. But a walk through a back alley off Ice Avenue reveals a problem.

A garage is open, the ripped-off doors stashed inside. An abandoned car sits in the middle of the garage, with mattresses piled on top. The floor of the adjacent bay is littered with tires and paint cans.

Noting that anyone could toss a cigarette into the open garage, she said, "If this one goes up, they all go up."

Cotton and Duschl walked down a narrow alley to an entrance to the garage and were dismayed by what they see. There, discarded in a pile of brush is a notice Duschl placed on the property months ago.

A lot to the rear of the 600 block of South Queen Street along Cemetery Alley presented a more treacherous scenario.

Cotton toed some thin plastic bags, white on one side and transparent on the other.

"Those are needles," he said glumly. "I was here Friday and they weren't here."

Nearby, a mattress was shoved against a wooden garage door to create this shooting gallery.

Tickets in July
Cotton and Duschl will receive hand-held computers in July to issue tickets. Devaney said the officers will be able to tap into the city's mainframe to determine who owns a property and if there are any past violations.

If they deem a ticket is warranted, they will input the information into the device. When they return to city hall, the stored information will be uploaded into the system and tickets will be mailed to property owners.

The hand-held computers are also equipped with cameras to record the scene digitally.

Officials said the system is much more efficient — and potentially more successful — than placing liens against properties.

Cotton and Duschl agree that problems are not confined to one area of the city.

The 200 block of North Pine Street contains homes that are, Duschl said, largely owner-occupied. The exteriors reflect the well-kept look of people who take pride in their homes.

But, as Cotton said, "You have to go around back. That's where the problems are."

The rear of one yard was littered with trash and four large, red plastic gasoline/kerosene containers. "They're in direct sunlight, too," Cotton said, considering what could happen if the containers weren't empty.

Duschl leaned over the fence to talk to the homeowner. Cotton is normally is quick to smile and has an affable nature that serves him well in his work. But he became steely-eyed when he noticed the young homeowner was carrying a baby.

Farther down the alley, a backyard was choked with weeds and fallen tree limbs, a few of which had dropped into a neighbor's well-kept yard.

"It's the same problem, just in different places," Cotton said.

Duschl added, "We're not trying to make them do it all at one time, but they have to work with us, too.

"It's a two-way street."

Back in Seventh Alley, Cotton said Cesar Rodriguez gets it. It is up to Cotton and Duschl to encourage others to work their side of the street, too.

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Chip Smedley is a staff writer for the Sunday News. E-mail him at csmedley@lnpnews.com.