FERRIDAY — The Town of Ferriday and Mayor Glen McGlothin know they have some cleaning up to do, but ridding the town abandoned properties is harder said than done.

Since McGlothin took office in 2008 approximately 40 vacant houses have been demolished.

Even with 40 gone, McGlothin said the town still has another 40 to 50 abandoned houses and businesses in Ferriday waiting to be demolished.

“This all stems from the fact that we have absentee landowners who don’t take care of their property all over Ferriday,” he said. “It’s their neighbors that suffer by having to deal with the tall grass, snakes, mice and other problems that arise from it.”

Whether it’s large abandoned businesses on E.E. Wallace Boulevard or houses left unattended down many town streets, McGlothin and the board of aldermen have been working to bring the town’s abandoned home ordinance up to date, so the town has more leeway when dealing with the removal of the houses.

“No one ever responds to the letters we send,” McGlothin said. “We are just stuck in the process.”

McGlothin said when an abandoned house is in disrepair, the town sends a letter to the homeowner asking them to clean-up the mess or get back with the town to work out a plan.

McGlothin said that most people do not respond to the letters, and the town has to wait for a set amount of days before anything can be done about the house.

“Even if we are able to tear down the house, we do it on our expense,” he said. “It takes a lot of equipment and things to tear these houses down.”

McGlothin said the town always bills the homeowner for the expense of tearing down the abandoned house, but most of the time the homeowner makes no attempt to pay the bill.

The town is working to find a way to make people pay these bills by applying the expenses to the homeowner’s taxes, McGlothin said.

“If they don’t pay the bill, I will put the property on their city taxes so they will have to pay it,” he said. “That’s the only way we can get most people to pay it.”

McGlothin said Ferriday has too many other activities and projects to fund, and that paying for demolishing houses is not where the money needs to go.

“We have work to do on land that we do own,” he said.

McGlothin said the town is working to find more ways to remove the houses quicker, and that he hopes to get the ball moving as soon as he can.

“We either need to enforce the ordinance or we need to take them off the book,” he said.