UNION TOWNSHIP— Making a mess in Lawrence County could cost you time and money, just ask two eastern end men who pleaded guilty recently to littering.

Ronnie Murdock, 42, of 471 County Road 67, was cited in Lawrence County Municipal Court in August after someone complained about a pile of household waste and clothing in the Indian Guyan Creek area and called the Lawrence-Scioto Solid Waste Management District to complain.

“It took Bob (investigator Stern) a week to track this one down, but he got it. He did a splendid job,” waste district director Dan Palmer said. “He didn’t give up and he found out who it was.”

Judge Donald Capper fined Murdock $250 and sentenced him to 30 days in jail but then suspended 28 days of that sentence and placed him on a year’s probation. Murdock must also perform 30 days of community service.

In another case, Rodney Maynard, was given the same sentence for another littering conviction.

Last week Palmer approached the Lawrence County Commission to get additional assistance in the war on trash. At his request, the commission agreed to send a letter to the Lawrence County Health Department, asking that agency to help clean up a parcel of land on Monroe Street in Burlington. Neighbors have complained that a burned out mobile home in that area has been allowed to stand for two years without any kind of attention.

“No one has done anything,” Palmer told the commission. “You see weeds growing up around it and there is a pool in the back with standing water that attracts mosquitos.”

Palmer said his agency is also investigating a house on Township Road 1031 in the South Point area that is so filthy neighbors have complained it is attracting rodents.