Cleaning Up The 'Hood

There are a couple of places right across the street from us that have accumulated a lot of garbage/mess in the last few months. One is a vacant house, a few months ago some people came to clean the yard and just threw everything over the wall and left it there. Plastic bags, weeds, tree branches, etc.. The other is our neighbor who does not keep the neatest yard. A couple of weeks ago we were surprised to see him out with his rake cleaning up his yard. He raked it up into a pile and then just left it there for the wind to blow around again. We decided that someone from the city must have told him to clean up as we have never seen him clean up like that before.
Yesterday I happened to glance out of the window and there were 3 or 4 men and a big truck picking up all the garbage from these two places. I don't know whether some of the neighbors complained to the city or what; but it was being cleaned up anyway. The fellows did a so-so job of cleaning the mess up and then drove away.
Later on in the evening a couple of the neighbor ladies got out their rakes and did some more cleaning, a little burning and now it looks much better. Or it did until our messy neighbor decided he would rake some more of his garbage up. He again made a pile and then just left it for the wind to blow as it will. Oh well, it is still better than it was.