The backs of the Lange Street homes were littered with trash, broken fences, rat holes and garbage cans without lids. There were some exceptions, as there were on the other side of the alley -- where one homeowner stuffed beer cans into rat holes -- but for the most part those residents secured their trash cans and lids and had neatly kept yards.

I'll have a more detailed look at the neighborhood in Friday's Crime Scenes, but here are some stats. Mohler wanted me to know that complaints from residents don't fall into a black hole. He said that on most weeks, 40 percent of the county's entire inspection crew is assigned to Dundalk, Essex and Middle River:

Mohler spread out a large map over the hood of his county car. Since January 2008, his officers have investigated 15,128 complaints in the 21224 and 21222 zip codes. Each complaint requires an inspector to visit a location up to four times.

The numbers are startling: 2,419 complaints of animal feces, 1084 for cars without license plates, 4,354 for tall grass and weeds, 6,083 for junk and debris and 4,655 for trash cans without lids. Since 2004, inspectors have handed out 168 citations on Lange Street alone, which is just two blocks long.

In a one-day crack down in the nearby Colgate neighborhood on March 10, inspectors wrote 308 tickets just for lidless trash cans. Mohler said $25 fines weren’t getting anyone’s attention, so he upped the first offense to $150. Even with that, Mohler said, “We haven’t hit the threshold” to convince people to stop. Fines can go as high as $500.