CAPE CORAL, Fla. — On Tuesday, families living behind 808 Miramar apartments in Cape Coral said piles of shopping carts left in people’s yards are getting out of hand.
“At one time you could count almost 20 or so out here,” said Barry Avery, who rents the home next to the yard filled with shopping carts.
On Tuesday, outside Avery’s yard, we counted 12 grocery carts inside his neighbor's yard.
An amount still driving frustrated homeowners to post about it through community pages on Facebook.
One neighbor, who said his name is Ken, who is living at the 808 Miramar apartments next door said it's from people shopping at the Winn-Dixie grocery store.
"They pile up and people call to bring them back and I don't think they are stealing them, I wouldn't bother but they just go shopping and leave them there,” said Ken.
After noticing that many of the shopping carts appeared to belong to Winn-Dixie, we contacted the store to follow up.
Cynthia, who didn't want to provide a last name, said she is the Winn-Dixie store manager and despite not being aware of the missing carts said she would send help.
Within the hour, store employees showed up and returned the carts to the store which is less than one mile away.
Soon after, Cape Coral, Code Enforcement showed up at the property to collect the remaining two carts.
Barry Avery, reacting to his new view outside his home, tells us it's a relief but probably not a lasting solution.
“It will probably happen again people go up, and bring them back, but people do have to get groceries a lot of these people ya know don’t have cars or bicycles or anything,” said Avery.
Public Information Specialist for the city of Cape Coral, Kaitlyn Pearson told us through an email that, shopping carts in a home's yard is not a code violation, and it is not enforced by the City.
Pearson said generally when the city comes across this type of situation, the store owners are alerted as a courtesy so they can collect their property.
