Soma Dinicola of 51 Robert Street, with her husband Nicholas Sumner by her side, told the city council during the open mic portion of the meeting that her neighbors’ yard at 53 Robert Street had become too much to bear.
“We have had a problem with complete neglect and a lot of coding violations for multiple years," Dinicola said. "It’s been going on for about four or five years. Absolutely no mowing, just nothing. It's just neglect.”
She made her demands clear.
“We want immediate removal and cleanup of every single thing in the front and in the back," said Dinicola. "I also want to be clear that I'm very educated and knowledgeable about tick borne illnesses, and their debris is thriving in ticks. And not only ticks, but we are, right behind us is the graveyard, the cemetery. So, there's these large ground hogs. There's hundreds of thousands of them back there, but we are all gated, fenced in. And we have two dogs. They don't come in our yard anymore since we got our dogs. Now, twice they have come – on their property, 53 – they've come over from their yard and attacked my dogs twice. I have been on film.”
Deborah Cardarella of 57 Robert Street echoed Dinicola’s frustrations and pleas for action.
“I'm now on the third health inspector dealing with the same issue over and over and over again," she told the council. "On August 11th of last year, the resident that lives there told the health inspector that he would have a maintenance person come in to take care of the mess. It has not happened. I have now had to hire an exterminator for the vermin, for the bugs that are in the yard and in my house. I'm running out of money and I'm running out of patience.”
One of the residents of 53 Robert Street, Michael Rizzuti, spoke up.
“I'm a disabled man who rarely leaves his house and generally only talks to other crazy people," he told the council. "I'm well aware I bother other people just by being around, so I try not to be around. I'm here today because I now have strange people whacking and yelling at my bedroom window over the past couple of weeks because they're mad about my landlord’s grass. I understand these people are upset about their property value. But I have to confess I'm not sure why. The modern housing market is so chaotic that all you realistically get out of higher property value is higher property tax, and I thought conservatives hated that. So, it's really confusing to me.”
He told the council he suspected the neighbors felt slighted by his mother’s inability to respond to their overtures and gifts when she moved into the home.
“She's generally terrified of people, especially neighbors, because she's seen and lived through pointless and petty nothingburgers like this one several times throughout her life," said Rizzuti. "Thank you very much for confirming that those fears are rational.”
Rizzuti said he too was unhappy with the lawn and that he had unsuccessfully asked his mother and landlord to address it, but that the situation has escalated beyond a rational point.
“It has progressed to the point of people openly threatening my family and me with a spicy side of fabricated allegations," he said. "These allegations are of a sort that if taken seriously, I should expect not to survive my arrest. I'm fine with that. I have very little to lose, and I am thoroughly sick and tired of the American monomyth that is the lawn feud. Our hallowed tradition of threatening people's lives and livelihood to establish the legal right of every white person to live on a golf course is absolutely the stupidest thing about American culture, and it makes us look like unhinged psychos to the rest of the world. If the death of an innocent man is what it takes to stop that madness, I pay the price gladly, because this world is too dumb for me to live in.”
Rizzuti called for a stop to the abuse he says his family has endured over the lawn.
“I do not believe that the city of Pittsfield should tolerate it when people who are mad about grass motivate the engine of society against a house full of disabled people," he said. "Our house is already putting things in motion with contractors to solve the lawn problem. It's been difficult because we're all a disabled mess. It takes time for us to take care of our business, and we're sorry. It will be solved soon. I hope we can solve the deeper systemic problem of people not minding their business.”
A petition from Ward 7 city councilor Anthony Maffuccio requesting the city take legal action against the owners of 53 Robert Street was referred to both the health director and city solicitor.
