TULSA, Okla. — When neighbors of an overgrown yard with gravel poured over the front lawn and multiple trucks and an RV parked on it didn't feel the city heard their complaints to code enforcement, they called the Problem Solvers.
Dori Kurtsinger is one of the neighbors who reached out to 311 with concerns about a house at the corner of 6th and S. Yale.
"They put gravel on the uh instead of a yard they now have gravel, and they have even more trucks. There's a travel trailer and they're there all the time and it's just, it's unsightly," Kurtsinger said.
WATCH: Tulsa neighbors call 2 News Problem Solvers about code enforcement issues
What the 311 customer service agent told her didn't sit well.
"He explained to me because somebody had already filed a complaint in May that they would not take my complaint in July," Kurtsinger said.
Kurtsinger found this response confusing and inadequate.
"It didn't make any sense because it seems like the more people who call and complain about something, the more seriously they would take it, because it's a real issue. I'm, I was by no means the first person to call about this. It's been going on since May. I didn't call until the end of July," Kurtsinger said.
The City of Tulsa told 2 News:
Only one report on a property is needed to start the process if the second report is the same as the first. That may have been what the agent was referring to in this case.
Once Customer Care takes a call, 311 agents will look up the address and if there is an existing open case with the same violations, a new case will not be created as the system will automatically close the duplicate case. This also applies if a citizen makes a report on tulsa311.com or on our mobile app. The system will auto close if the address has an open case.
If the second report on the property is different from the first case, for example - the first case was tall grass (nuisance) and the second case was a roof issue (property maintenance) - then our 311 agents would create a separate case.
In this case, we have been onsite and identified all violations.
Regardless of that internal process, citizens likely wouldn’t know that their neighbors already made a report to 311, so we still encourage people to contact 311 to make reports.
"It made me feel like they didn't really care," Kurtsinger said.
After that May complaint, code enforcement inspectors did find several violations, including:
- The gravel, which is a zoning violation because city code requires an all-weather dustless surface
- Overgrown yard and trash, classified as nuisance violations
- A property maintenance violation for an RV parked on the front yard
While the owners of the property declined to speak on camera, they did talk by phone, saying they're working hard to fix the violations like cutting back overgrown trees and brush and renovating the house.
"I'm really pleased to hear that," Kurtsinger said.
The City of Tulsa says they are in contact with the property owner about addressing all violations.
You can check whether a property has code violations and the status of them:
1. Go to the City of Tulsa website
2. Click on "Status of a Code Case"
3. Click on "Visit our Self Service Portal"
4. Click on "Search Public Records"
5. Enter the address of the property.
If there are violations, they will pop up, and you can search the disposition of individual complaints.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
Contact the Problem Solvers:
- 918-748-1502
- problemsolvers@kjrh.com
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