Maple Valley couple tracks down illegal dumper

MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. — Trash is being dumped on private property, but the owners discovered a big clue to solve the mystery.

It's been happening across the Puget Sound region.  Someone dumps their trash onto someone else's property. Then it falls on the property owners to pay to have it removed.

This has been happening a lot to a couple and their neighbors who live off Southeast Petrovitsky Road in Maple Valley. They say it has gotten very bad in the last year and they don't know why.

But this time, the couple went looking for the culprits.

"It's just more household trash," said Robbie Norman. "Like somebody didn't want to take the time to go to the dump to get rid of their own stuff."

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Robbie and Courtney Norman so angry.

"People should be held responsible for what they do," said Courtney Norman.

Somebody dumped a load of trash on their private property. It has happened a lot in the last year. But this time, they found a treasure of sorts in all these bags.

"I don't know why someone would want to go dump their trash with their own personal address and everything on it," said Robbie Norman.

They say they called the King County sheriff's deputies and were told there was nothing they could do. So the couple took the mailing address and tracked the woman down.

"Then this morning, when me and my husband drove by the house and then figured out who they were, that's when I returned the call and was like there, there has to be something that we can do," Courtney Norman said.  "They should not be allowed to just dump."

So the deputies called on the woman. And just after 2 p.m. Sunday, she and a friend showed up. When she saw the KIRO 7 camera, she immediately burst into tears.

"Because I'm embarrassed," Claudine Looney said through her tears.  "This is embarrassing."

She was told that because her trash was dumped on private property, the owners would have to pay to have it removed or do it themselves.

"That's why we're here," Looney said.  "We're going to get it loaded and get it out of here. I paid somebody to do this."

The Normans pitched in, too. Very quickly, nearly everything that had been dumped was loaded into the truck and driven away.

Since the story aired at 5 p.m., a viewer wrote saying she once worked for a trash hauler who would take his customers' money and then just dump the trash illegally.

That is what Looney says happened in this case.

At least this time, it has been made right.

Cox Media Group