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ELLICOTT, COLO. -- El Paso County Commissioners have taken action after an absentee landlord trashed part of the county.

County officials say Rodney Preisser was running a storage unit business on his land near Calhan. But after Preisser ran into legal and financial problems, they say Preisser began dismantling the storage units with the contents still inside.

Anything that’s out in the open in that part of the county this time of year is going to be tossed around by the wind. And the mountain of wind-blown trash created has the county considering its legal options.

"They had furniture boxes of business records, garbage all kinds of things that they left behind," said District 2 County Commissioner Amy Lathen.

Wind blew the trash everywhere and neighbors complained.

"I began to receive calls about two weeks ago from residents saying that the property owner had begun to dismantle storage sheds and left everything out," Lathen said.

That's when county commissioners stepped in and tried to tell the property owner he had 10 days to clean up the mess.

"In this case we had bankruptcy and foreclosure and we couldn’t make contact with the owner," Lathen said.

Finally, a few days ago friends and family of the owner began cleaning up the mess.

"I went out and checked the property this morning and they have done a great job of picking it up," Lathen said.

But some of the trash has already escaped the property.

"Now all the trash has blown onto adjacent properties and into the ditches and the highway, and so we’re going to see if there is anything we can do about that," Lathen said.

Lathen says besides being an eyesore the trash can actually be dangerous.

"One of the big issues for the adjacent property owners is the danger to livestock. The livestock will ingest a lot of this garbage and it can cause a major issue," Lathen said.

Lathen says she is still trying to figure out what can be done about the rest of the trash. She's not sure if the people who own the storage units are willing to clean it up.

And even if they are they'll have to have the permission of their neighbors to go onto their property to do it.