BALTIMORE — Families are angry and heartbroken over the conditions at a Baltimore cemetery, claiming the owner isn’t doing anything to address their concerns.
"This is where I spend at least once a day.” said Rob McDonald. “At least once a day I come by here."
McDonald buried his 4 month old daughter at Mount Carmel in 1998. He says there's not a day that goes by he doesn't think about her.
"I don't feel like I've recovered,” he said.
He says what makes the pain of losing his daughter even worse is the poor condition this cemetery is in.
"We come over ourselves. We got to clean off our stone," McDonald said.
McDonald says his daughter's headstone is typically covered in grass, but he says when you look around the cemetery there are even bigger issues.
He says these overgrown bushes are seen throughout the property burying headstones as well as fallen trees on top of graves sites. McDonald says every day he also sees fallen and damaged headstones.
“It upsets you,” said Delores Gribble. “It's horrible.”
Gribble has multiple family members buried there too, including her mom and grandparents. She says the overgrowth is so bad--it takes some people hours to find loved ones--some can't find them at all.
“I cant imagine not being able to find my mother, my nephew, my niece or my grandparents,” she said.
Other families have even complained about it on Facebook--creating a page to talk about the cemetery's issues.
"[The owner] isn’t doing anything,” she said.
McDonald says the owner even promised to clean up the cemetery 20 years ago, but he says that never happened--even though he's brought it to the owner's attention every year since.
"Same story every year: We just don’t have the resources,” he said.
Both Gribble and McDonald say that reason is not good enough. McDonald says they're tired of excuse and say their families and the others deserve better.
WMAR-2 News tried to reach out to the owner for comment, but we were unable to reach him.
