slobs in the tidy and messy thread watch out

Homeowner has a choice: Clean or go to jail

from omaha

BY RICK RUGGLES



WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Rosemarie "Rosie" Fellman wants to get out from under the mounting mound of charges against her.

Her attorney, Jim McGough, said he intends to find Fellman help in cleaning up her home, which has dozens of trash receptacles outside it and, authorities say, is filled with rubbish inside.

Such a cleaning project would be a relief to city inspectors, neighbors and a judicial system that has grown accustomed to seeing Fellman in the Douglas County Courthouse.

Fellman, 58, is scheduled to go to jail for 10 days starting Nov. 19 for various housing code violations. After that, she'll be given time to clean her place, at 90th and Leavenworth Streets.

If she fails, she'll go to jail for an additional 10 days, then be given more time to clean, and so on, concluding with a 45-day jail stint if the problem remains unresolved on Jan. 30.

She spent five days in jail earlier this year for housing code violations and has appealed a sentence of 85 more days in jail in that case.

McGough said he will help Fell-man get her house to a condition that meets city codes.

"It's a massive task," he said.

She has several court appearances scheduled in the next couple of months.

Fellman said Thursday that the city has conducted 43 inspections of her home since January and that she has 47 criminal charges pending.

The items in the many trash receptacles outside, she said, are intended for eight charitable organizations. "That's the whole point," she said.

Kevin Denker, the city's chief housing code inspector, called it one of the worst trash cases he has seen. The City of Omaha changed its code in dealing with those cases a little more than a year ago, he said, increasing its authority to criminally prosecute violators. Since then, court filings against Fellman have piled up.

Denker said Fellman isn't the only person to have served jail time for housing code violations.

"We had a gentleman do 90 days about a year ago," Denker said. "There's been others."

Denker said a demolition order has been issued, but Fellman has appealed it. The electricity inside has been shut off. Fellman said she's living with a neighbor now.

She has faced charges on a variety of issues, including litter, outdoor storage, electricity, plumbing and unsafe structure.

Some neighbors, who declined to be named, said they are exasperated. In one court document, an inspector estimated that more than 145 plastic trash receptacles were outside her two-level brick house.

In an application for a search warrant in September, a city inspector wrote that on a previous visit, he found the house unsafe and unsanitary.

"Since the piled rubbish covers all floor space, one could not traverse the house without crawling over the piles," he wrote.

Neighbors expressed alarm at the many lawsuits Fellman has filed. She has sued city inspectors, a towing company, at least one neighbor, a relative over her mother's will and others, often without the help of an attorney.

One of her former attorneys, Ralph Peppard, said city ordinances don't indicate how many trash receptacles are allowed outside a house. As to the condition of the interior, Peppard said a valid argument can be made that the searches were improperly done.

Peppard said Fellman's inclination to hoard is "probably a medical condition" that involves obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"That's his opinion," Fellman said.