EAST WENATCHEE — A few years ago, Cheryl Martinez saw hundreds of tumbleweeds racing up a hill about a block from her house.

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Carol, left, and Bruce Beyerl stand in their side yard in spring 2007, where they say tumbleweeds had been stacked as high as the house all along the fence line. There have been fewer of the invaders this year, in part due to a small fence they erected along the perimeter of their property. (Photo courtesy of Carol Beyerl)

Martinez, 52, said the scene created by the tumbleweeds was funny, but cleaning up the mess they leave every spring has been a nuisance.

Residents in the Goldcrest Street neighborhood at the north end of East Wenatchee say tumbleweeds have been rolling off a 40-acre property into their yards. Many people say they have to clean up the mess every day, and the tumbleweeds are scattered throughout the neighborhood.

Most yards contain at least one tumbleweed, and others look like an old Western movie gone out of control, with several tumbleweeds and more rolling their way.

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Gabe Martinez, 20, takes a bundle of tumbleweeds from his yard in East Wenatchee down the street to a vacant lot Friday afternoon. The weeds blow into his family's yard, as well as their neighbor's yards. Martinez says it's a weekly job. (World photo/Kathryn Stevens)

Many residents burn the tumbleweeds to get rid of them, while others move the prickly weeds by hand.

"It's just frustrating when you know that you've just cleared some one day, and the next day it's windy again and you get another load of them," said Eddie Velazquez, 31, on Wednesday.

Carol Beyerl, a neighborhood resident, said Wednesday she recently put up a 2-foot fence on her front lawn that has kept some of the prickly weeds out. Her house usually gets more tumbleweed than anyone in the neighborhood, and some years they pile up to about 6 feet against her fence.

"Last year, we were probably burning tumbleweeds whenever the wind would blow," she said.

Rawland Taplett, the owner of the Empire Avenue Northwest property where neighbors say most of the tumbleweeds are coming from, said he has received three complaints in the past few years. Taplett's property is full of the Salsola shrub that dries up and tumbles with the wind.

Taplett said many of the tumbleweeds come from closer to the Columbia River than his property and happen to roll by his land. He has tried to burn and cut the tumbleweeds to get rid of them, he said.

Many residents say Taplett should put up a fence to catch the weeds, but he said they would just hop the fence.

Kim Morris, 44, was clearing out tumbleweeds from her front yard on 34th Street Northwest on Wednesday, a daily spring chore since she moved here three years ago. She continues to pile the weeds in her backyard and is waiting for the burning ban to be lifted so she can dispose of them.

There are times she said she has to clear out 50 tumbleweeds at a time.

She said safety is one reason Taplett should put up a fence.

"It's a fire hazard, because if you just threw a cigarette down or a spark to one of those things, they'd go right up," she said. "They are the quickest things to burn."

Tumbleweed is a problem for residents in the spring, but Martinez said the worst of it has passed. But she knows the tumbleweed will come back.

"All these patches here of this green stuff, they're growing for next year," said Martinez, pointing to the shrubs that become the rolling invaders. "They're our enemy right now."

Alejandro Gonzalez: 670-5138

gonzalez@wenatcheeworld.com