SUSQUEHANNA TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WHTM) — The deer who prance at dusk are lovely, but the rodents and snakes — who neighbors say also enjoy two overgrown lots in an otherwise-densely populated, manicured subdivision — are not.

“It’s a health hazard, never mind an eyesore,” said Howard Ross, who lives in Hillside Villas, a neighborhood of 21 mostly-duplex homes along Progress Avenue. It was supposed to be 23 homes when a developer built the community in 2008, and the difference is an important detail, because two adjacent lots where the last two homes were supposed to go have been a problem for many of the years since, said Ross and his neighbor Bob Altoff.

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But then the developer went bankrupt, and the lots have changed hands a number of times since between a succession of people who planned to finally build the homes but ultimately couldn’t or didn’t. Some of the owners, Altoff and Ross say, took good care of the lots; others didn’t, but the township stepped in and placed liens against the property to recover the expenses the next time it was sold.

But they say that stopped during the past year, and — also according to the two men — the township hasn’t addressed complaints they’ve lodged by phone and via an online system.

The lots are separated from Progress Avenue by lots occupied by well-maintained homes.

“If this property were anywhere in view of the majority of the citizens of the township, they would not let this situation exist,” Altoff said. “We want it to look like every property in the township is expected to look like, according to the code.”

Reached by abc27 News, Betsy Logan, the township’s director of community and economic development, said Altoff and Ross might be correct that the problem would have been addressed if the lots were along a main road. But not, she said, because code enforcers don’t care about the lots where they are — rather, she said, because they wouldn’t regularly patrol a private road within a small neighborhood.

Logan said she couldn’t find records of complaints since the current owner bought the lots. But in any case, she said the township has now started enforcement with that owner. She said leaders have to give that owner a certain amount of time to begin maintaining the lots on their own, which would be the ideal scenario. But one way or another, she said the lots will be cleaned by the end of September, hopefully by the owner but otherwise by the township, which would revert to placing liens against the property to recover the cleaning costs.

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