Stagnant water on Peggy Sheldon’s property.

DAYTON — Standing water and the pests it breeds has been a huge issue for many years for Peggy Sheldon; but it has never been as bad as it has this year with all the wet weather. The cause of it appears to be beavers building dams on the property across the street from hers on Bentley Road.

For at least the last four-months, Sheldon has been at the Dayton Town Board meetings, raising her case for anyone that will listen. She’s sick with cancer that was discovered this year in February and is trying to manage this growing problem for the sake of herself and her five children, ages 9-17.

“We have two bug zappers,” Sheldon started. “Every night we cover ourselves in bug spray just to get to sleep. It’s not healthy putting that many chemicals on your skin every day, not to mention in your lungs; two of my kids have asthma, but what can we do?”

Sheldon is of course talking about mosquitoes who make their nests in stagnant water. Her greatest concern with the bugs is the West Nile virus, which made it’s way into Erie County in 2011 and has seen a resurgence as of last week.

Everyday, including some days off, Highway Superintendent Brian Taber and his crew have been up at her property to help drain the water, but as always, their attempts are in vain. Taber’s frustration with the whole situation was evident at the board meeting held Sept. 12. He’d like to see it resolved once and for all, and so would many others, seeing as tax dollars and resources are being eaten up by repeating the same work day in and day out.

What Taber is trying to do, according to Sheldon, is drain the water out onto her property, behind her house, down the road 200-300 feet, back across the road once more and down to the creek. The overall problem though is that the ditch that used to be in back of her property has since filled in, and the highway crew may dig in the front of her house, but not out back.

“This makes the problem worse,” Sheldon said. “Not only is there water in front of my house, it’s in back and on the sides too.”

The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) came down a couple of months ago, seeing as the beavers are part of the protected wetlands. They said they could move the animals to another location but have to get permission from the property owner, or a warrant in order to do so. According to Sheldon however, the neighbors there want the animals left alone despite the havoc the overall issue is wreaking on her family’s lives.

The neighbors, according to her, are allegedly part of the problem.

“They have no running water or electricity,” Sheldon stated. “I know this because the woman has come over to get fresh water and to charge her phone several times in the past. They use the back of their property as a bathroom.”

According to Sheldon, there is a family of three living there, a mother and two grown sons, along with eight dogs. The house, according to her, is apparently unliveable at the moment and so the family, she claims, is living in a semi trailer on the property.

At the town board meeting, Code Enforcement Officer Frank Watson stated he was going to go over to check out the property.

The next step for Sheldon is getting the Health Department involved.

“There’s got to be somebody who’ll listen,” Sheldon said. “The anxiety on top of already being sick is terrible. I can’t breathe sometimes, I’m so tired and I ache all over. My kids want to play outside and they can’t. We just need someone to fix this.”

The OBSERVER is looking to reach out to the neighbors for comment.