A mother helped law enforcement track down her son who dumped his unwanted junk on vacant property.
The landlord of 21-year-old Joseph James Salter of Summerfield had been pressuring him to clean up debris on his rental property, according to an arrest report from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. Frustrated by Salter’s prolonged inaction, the landlord threatened to evict Salter if it didn’t clean up the mess, which included old tires and a discarded couch.
Feeling the heat, Salter borrowed a trailer from his mother and recruited his siblings to haul away the debris. He illegally dumped the junk on a wooded lot. The property owner found it and called the sheriff’s office.
The dumped debris was collected and hauled to the Baseline Landfill. Marion County Solid Waste provided a document showing that the debris added up to 680 pounds.
A witness had snapped a photo of the trailer Salter was using when he was dumping the debris. A deputy used the photo to track the trailer to Salter’s mother. She told the deputy she allows her children to use the trailer as necessary. She said she would investigate the matter and find out who had dumped the junk.
In a followup interview, she said Salter had been under pressure from his landlord to clean up the property. After several weeks of being nagged by the landlord, Salter “finally grew tired of his landlord bothering him” and persuaded his siblings to help him load the junk into their mother’s trailer. She said, “They found a spot they thought would be sufficient and elected to dump it instead of disposing of it properly.”
When the deputy tracked down Salter, he admitted his landlord’s threats made him “frantic” because he “did not have the money to go to the dump.” He admitted he chose to illegally dump the unwanted materials.
He was arrested Monday on a felony charge of littering. He was booked at the Marion County Jail and released after posting $5,000 bond.