BATON ROUGE — A resident says she has spent years trying to get someone to take responsibility for maintaining an overgrown servitude near her home, but keeps getting the runaround.

Debra Gaspard has lived in her home for more than three decades. For 12 of those years, she said the city maintained the area.

"Whenever I or other people would call, I would say every couple of years but for 12 years they did maintain it," Gaspard said.

She said it was city Department of Public Works trucks that came out to clean up the area. "They cleaned out everything down to the bare dirt," Gaspard said.

The last time those trucks showed up was in 2020. The overgrowth has gotten so thick that Gaspard can no longer open her gate to spray for weeds.

When 2 On Your Side reached out to the city, officials said the area is not their responsibility. The city provided a plot map showing Gulf States Utilities has a 150-foot right of way under the power lines in the area and that the overgrown ditch sits about 30 feet within that right of way.

Gaspard then contacted Entergy, which told her the land belongs to the city. "Then they said call Entergy, of course they said no it's not ours, it belongs to the city, so then I started calling the city," Gaspard said. "So you can see what a rabbit trail this has been."

She has been sending emails and making calls trying to get a clear answer. "We just get the runaround. I hate to say it but that's what we get is the runaround," Gaspard said.

The Department of Maintenance says it does not have the authority to perform routine maintenance in the area because it is not part of the city's maintained public drainage system. 2 On Your Side's Brittany Weiss has also reached out to Entergy.