GREENE — If you’ve driven past George Stanley’s place on Route 202 recently you may have noticed something peculiar about the property.

Mainly that it looks the same as it has for decades.

There are still massive mountains of random stuff sprawling in front of the rambling house. There are still arrays of hand-painted signs warning people off the property or protesting political matters.

The town still plans to clean up the property, officials confirmed this week. The question is when.

For years, the town has battled in court against Stanley’s claim that his property and its expansive piles of goods constitute a flea market. That long battle came to an end two years ago when Maine’s highest court ruled against Stanley.

In 2024, the Maine Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that found Stanley had violated the state’s junkyard law and the town’s flea market ordinance. The town had taken Stanley to court over the matter in 2022.

After the 2024 ruling, it was expected that town officials would clean up the property at last. In fact they still plan to, a code enforcement officer affirmed this week.

But it is not a matter they will rush into.

Shortly after the high court decision in 2024, Stanley transferred ownership of the property to his girlfriend and moved out. The town fought that move, but before the dust could settle in the matter, Stanley had filed several new motions in court.

Those motions were struck down, too, but Stanley’s legal moves put town officials back on their heels.

“The motions did serve to bring caution to the town that activity to enforce the court order would likely result in further legal maneuvering by Mr. Stanley,” Greene Code Enforcement Officer Brent Armstrong said Monday. “In efforts to avoid further, unnecessary expense to the taxpayers, the town has paused to asses the best path forward.”

In other words, Stanley’s ramshackle property, which was once a moccasin factory, continues to be an annoying eyesore for some, a quaint curiosity to others.

One woman this week described Stanley’s former home and the heaps outside it as “a monument.”

Another described it as “disgusting” and suggested the state of the property may present a health hazard.

“If I was his neighbor, I’d be concerned with rodents, snakes, mold, hazmat issues and ground contamination to water,” the woman wrote on Facebook.

The irony is that Stanley doesn’t even live there anymore — although several people reported seeing Stanley and his van outside his former home on Route 202 in recent days. Stanley says he is mainly staying at homeless shelters in Lewiston and Augusta.

Shortly after the 2024 court decision, Stanley was moved with the help of a social worker to an apartment in West Bath, where he was frequently seen collecting items at roadsides.

On Monday, Stanley said he has heard many a false rumor about his whereabouts in recent months.

“They say, ‘We heard you have a home in Harpswell,'” Stanley said. “‘We’ve heard you have a home in Florida.'”

Others, apparently, have spread the word that Stanley died.

He disputes this, as well.

“As Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated,” Stanley said.

Asked about the status of the Route 202 property, he gets riled.

“There’s nothing going on at all,” he said Monday.

In the meantime, Stanley has some other irons in the fire.

On Monday, he said he was in Augusta to file “100 complaints to the Maine Human Rights Commission.”

Included in his grievances, Stanley said, were complaints about a Lewiston farm supply store that had kicked him out of the business and an Augusta super store that refused to take his food stamps as payment for items.

While Stanley is off on other business, Greene town officials insist the property that has vexed neighbors for so long will be taken care of. A few disposal business owners have even put in bids for the job.

The town just isn’t rushing into it.

“The town does intend to abate the property, as planned and authorized by court order,” Armstrong said. “Any action needs to be very deliberate and with caution.”

Stanley sees it differently.

“This is Maine. You see these places all over Maine,” he said. “Tourists come here from New Jersey and spend $5,000 a week to get out with their kids and explore. … This is Americana!”