City leaders in LeClaire say there needs to be more done to combat scenes like this: yards filled with debris and junk. Residents agree sites like these are an eye sore, but the question is: how do you define "junk."
"I've seen some stuff that you can see it's junk, but some of it's not," says one LeClaire resident.
The owner of this house says he's received a notice from the city to clean up his property. He didn't want to go on camera, but says this is nothing more than small town politics and his mess will go away just as soon as he's done remodeling his home.
LeClaire's mayor wants to use $50,000 in city funds to pay for ordinance enforcement that would have the city clean up junk filled properties. It would work much like an ordinance that allows the city to mow your lawn and then charge you for it if your grass is too long.
Most agree something should be done, but how to do it is where opinions begin to differ.
"I wouldn't know how you would make that law or how you would enforce it even because that old saying one person's junk is another person's treasure," explains one resident.
"I've lived in other areas and they have certain days during the week or the month that if you've got junk that you want to get rid of you set it out a long side the curb the trucks come, pick 'em up and it helps clean the town up, do you think there's a better way of going about this? Oh yeah."
There are an estimated 70 to 80 properties in LeClaire that would be affected by renewed enforcement of the city's anti-junk ordinance. LeClaire's mayor says the ordinance was put in place about ten to 15 years ago.