News 5 is working to get answers and a permanent fix for a Cleveland area mom.
It comes after strong storms brought down a power line at her East Side home.
She says the downed line was then tossed in a bush and never cleaned up from the site.
"There's no reason why no wires is in the bush," Chrishawndra Matthews, Literacy in the Hood Founder, said.
Matthews says she can almost always keep her cool.
But when it comes to this site steps away from her beloved Cleveland home along East 154th Street, she has reached a boiling point.
"It's bigger than a hula hoop down there of wires. And it's like one-two-three-four-five, it's wrapped around six or seven times down there," Matthews said.
Strong storms brought down a large and long line a few weeks ago, putting Matthews and her neighbors on edge.
"This usually would be on there. This goes from here to there. After it caught fire on that pole—I'm not sure why they wrapped all this around down here," Matthews said.
She says a crew came to her neighborhood, wrapped the line like a hula hoop and then proceeded to toss the downed line in her vacant neighbor's bush against the fence in the backyard.
She claims she called and reported the issue to Cleveland Public Power at least twice, but she says no one ever came to finish the clean-up process.
"I said let me call my friend at TV5 and see if they can help me do something about this wire," Matthews said.
Matthews may look familiar to viewers.
To many in the area, she is "the free book lady with the van."
She's usually always out and about and working to improve literacy rates across town one free book at a time.
However, she says this situation has been a distraction and danger to her, her son Derrick and the neighborhood kids.
She says Derrick plays basketball and hangs out in the backyard all the time.
"All I could think about is these boys. And I know we have balls in that yard, and balls in this yard all the time. So, I could just see them trying to run to the fence, touch the fence and jump here," Matthews said.
News 5's Mike Holden reached out to Cleveland Public Power to get to the bottom of the issue.
It's who Matthews claimed was responsible.
He called their customer service line and waited on hold.
After half hour on hold, he was transferred to the media relations line.
A spokesperson confirmed they also got an email about the issue from him and would further investigate the problem.
They said in a statement in part:
"Our crews went out to the site and found that the wires in question are not Cleveland Public Power’s, they belong to CEI/FE and others – cable, telephone."
News 5 then reached out to Matthews again, who confirmed she, in fact, did contact Cleveland Public Power.
News 5 then followed up with First Energy for some additional assistance.
A spokesperson with First Energy told News 5 they would look into the problem, and they did.
In a statement, they said:
"Our line workers confirmed the old CPP wire at this property was not energized and removed it from the property as a courtesy."
News 5 then circled back with Cleveland Public Power to clear up the confusion over who the wire actually belonged to.
CPP confirmed it was their wire.
A spokesperson said:
"After further investigation we found that the wires were ours. As indicated, the wires were de-energized and were not a danger. The wires were a service loop and normal procedure is to leave them on the property for later use, but they should have been left at the rear of the property."
Matthews says, regardless of the situation, she's relieved the wire is removed.
"We all have to hold each other accountable for the things that we're supposed to be doing," Matthews said.
