Monterey County Sheriff’s see rise in vacant house parties
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said it’s seeing an increased number of calls regarding people throwing parties at vacant houses around the county.
In the past few weeks there have been six reports of parties being thrown at vacant houses. Most of those homes are vacant because they’re on the market to be sold.
“The man who owns it has put in a lot of work in getting it ready to sell, then they (kids) come in and party and trash it a little bit,” said neighbor Bill Shonley.
“We started getting reports and coming across these very large parties set up at what are vacant houses and a lot of cases houses for sale,” said Monterey County Sheriff’s Commander John Thornburg.
Commander Thornburg said trespassing is one of the many issues.
“They’re on the property, but they’re damaging it. It looks like they’re doing thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of damage.We’ve got a lot of alcohol, we’ve got a lot of cars so there’s a huge traffic problem. People leaving who may, and our biggest concern is driving, well one there’s trespassing but two there’s driving after that. And just reviewing the reports real quick we’ve found narcotics and other issues that come around these types of things,” said Thornburg.
The sheriff’s office estimates the most recent party this past weekend in Prunedale brought more than 100 people. Neighbors said it wasn’t so much the noise, but the clean-up the next morning.
“That’s when it really hit us all when the sun came up and we went out on Saturday morning and saw just the beer bottles both full and empty and liquor bottles of all kinds and debris it was just mind boggling,” said Shonley.
The sheriff’s office said there was at least one arrest this past weekend but all cases are still being investigated.
Because of these parties, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said they’re dedicating several deputies to look into these specific cases. They’re also assigning extra patrols on the night shifts in hopes of putting an end to the parties.
