Some six dump truck loads later, and the public nuisance on Cadiz Street is gone – at least for now.

A city crew, armed with pitchforks and shovels, worked throughout the morning Tuesday to clean the property owned by Allen Jordan, the man who claimed to make “the city look better” by gathering piles of garbage – everything from empty, ant-encrusted ice cream cups, discarded newspapers, boxes and paper to just plain trash – and collecting it on his property. Jordan said in a previous Star-News interview said there were two reasons behind his collecting habits.

“I recycle,” he said. “I’ve been doing it since the ‘50s. If we didn’t recycle, we wouldn’t have anything. I do it, too, to make the city look nice. I pick this stuff up because no one else does. I do it so I can feel better. It makes the city look better.”

Jordan was nowhere to be seen Tuesday as the piles of debris were scooped up by a front-end loader, deposited into a dump truck and taken to the city landfill.

The day’s events marked the end of a months-long process to clean the property. Jordan’s home was one of 50 open cases in the city’s abatement process.