A house of drugs and poop that was the bane of the Harvest Drive neighborhood is now vacant and cleaned up — at least on the outside.

Responding to one persistent neighbor, members of the Oak Harbor Police Department, a city building official and legal department went through the long and difficult process of dealing with the home as a nuisance property.

Dee Holwitz, who lives next door to the problem house, said the trouble started in the beginning of the year when the owner, who lives in Everett, allowed his friends to stay there. About three months later, things got bad next door.

Cars were coming and going all hours of the day and night, according to the neighbors. The yard was filling with junked cars and trash. People living in a broken-down van in the front yard went to the bathroom in buckets and jugs, which were being emptied into the yard.

Holwitz said he watched a big rat run from the property.

“I’ve never seen a rat before,” she said. “It crawled up the front of a neighbor’s house. I didn’t know they could do that.”

Making matters even worse, Holwitz said, there are two daycares within a block of the house and two school bus stops nearby.

It was an untenable situation, she said.

During this time, detectives were investigating reports of drug dealing in the house. Police Detective Sgt. Mike Bailey said officers served a search warrant on the property May 5 and arrested a woman who lived there on suspicion of dealing methamphetamine and tampering with evidence; she allegedly tried to flush the meth down the toilet as police arrived.

But the woman was soon out of jail and conditions at the house didn’t improve.

Holwitz said she approached the neighbors about getting together to do something, but nobody wanted to get involved. Everyone kept their curtains shut and children inside.

Undeterred, she then sent a letter to the city’s code enforcement office and left messages on the police department’s tip line. She researched the nuisance-house problem on the Internet, and, following the advice experts, started keeping a journal of what was going on. She called 911.

“You have to get involved and say something if you want anything to change,” she said.

Meanwhile, city official Brian Lee received Holwitz’s letters and went out to check out the property himself. Noting the mess, he started the city’s process for addressing such properties; the first step is to send a letter to the property owner telling him to fix the problem.

But Holwitz was fed up with having to wait. She went to a meeting of the Oak Harbor City Council and asked them to do something. The interim police administrator and Lee spoke with her afterward and discussed the problem.

Bailey also contacted Holwitz and asked her to start writing down the license plate numbers of all the cars she saw at the house. She noted more than 100 plate numbers in just a couple of months, which she passed along to the detective.

Lee said he spoke to the people living in the house and they agreed to clean up the mess. Again, nothing changed.

Bailey and Lee, along with the city’s legal department, decided on a team approach to tackling the problem.

The detectives obtained another search warrant on the house and brought Lee along when they served it on July 21; normally, a code enforcement officer has to remain on the public right of way when investigating problems.

What they found inside was pretty shocking, Lee said.

At least five people, a couple of cats, one dog and a fish were living in the house, Lee said. The water was shut off so residents were going to the bathroom in buckets around the house. The floor was covered with human and dog feces. Jars of urine dotted the home. The residents were piping the water from a leaky sink to the toilet, risking cross contamination.

It didn’t smell good at all.

Lee said he noted 33 different code violations. He deemed that the house unsafe for occupancy because of biohazards, drug hazards, unlawful sanitation facilities, unlawful occupancy, unlawful alterations and unlawful nuisances.

Lee gave the occupants 20 minutes to get out and posted the order on the house.

Bailey said he arrested the woman again on suspicion of dealing meth.

The building official sent the owner a 12-page letter, explaining that the house was inhabitable. He listed the violations, setting a timeline for him to fix the problems and get the house boarded. He said professionals in biohazard suits will need to clean the inside.

The owner claimed that the people were living in the house without his permission and that he was facing foreclosure on the property, Lee said.

Nevertheless, the owner started cleaning the yard. The broken-down cars were towed away and debris was removed.

“We worked to give the neighbors their neighborhood back,” Lee said.

Lee said he understands people’s frustration with the amount of time it can take to deal with a nuisance house, but explained the homeowners have their due-process rights. The goal is to get voluntary compliance so that the owner bears the costs of cleanup.

The situation on Harvest Drive is still not ideal, however. Trash with an especially unpleasant odor lines one side of the house. People are continually breaking in to retrieve property. The inside hasn’t been cleaned.

Still, Holwitz said she is very pleased.

“People have their curtains open,” she said. “They’re letting their kids play outside.”