A Cape Coral homeowner seeks help as a two-story houseboat sits on his dock after Hurricane Jan.

CAPE CORAL, Florida. Imagine that you are exiting through the back door to this two-story eyesore floating in your channel.

This is the reality for one Cape Coral resident who was stranded on a houseboat on a dock after Hurricane Ian. A situation that is getting more desperate every day.

“He climbed up there on the dam, and then the wind just carried him down, and he broke my mooring. My dock is destroyed.”

This is a harsh reality for Cape Coral homeowner Gerard Mazzella.

“He’s on my dam and he was here after the storm.”

A two-story houseboat that drifted down the canal from his neighbor’s house.

“(He) doesn’t have the money, he doesn’t have the people to do it for him,” says Mazzella, speaking of his neighbor who owns a houseboat. “It’s his responsibility, and if it were mine, I couldn’t let it stay here.”

Mazzella even tried to contact the FWC and the county. The only problem…

“Deaf ears,” he says. “No one wants to help me, not even the owner. Everyone is trying, but no one seems to be able to.”

One of Mazzella’s biggest fears is the impact this house will have on not only his dam, but also his dock. You can already see what he did to his pier by moving some of the boards around which made it unsafe to walk on.

“I have not been able to use my boat for the last 60 to 90 days,” Mazzella said. “And I don’t know what happens to this thing if it flows into the water, what’s under it, and it can’t be refloated. . It must be destroyed. It needs to be taken apart.”

We have contacted the FWC. They told us the same thing they told Mazzella.

“They were here, all their officers,” he says. “Their rules are that they can’t remove anything from the water if it doesn’t have a registration number on it.”

They offered an alternative solution. Something also provided by the district, which we also turned to.

“They referred me to Ian Rescue Emergency. I filled out the application online, I sent it back on December 14th and haven’t heard from them since. And I sent two more emails last week.”

Which has led Mazzella to still hope that someone can help.

“Maybe I can find the right people or someone will come out and we can get this thing out of my backyard.”