Was Taylor Swift severely fined for a lot of trash outside her home? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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Taylor Swift, the beloved singer known for shaking off haters, couldn’t do much when it came to piles of trash outside her Tribeca townhouse.
The Blank Space artist had reportedly racked up over $3,000 in fines for failing to keep the sidewalks outside her $18 million property clean. The fines included “piles of newspapers, bottles and cardboard; napkins and wrappers; and ‘scattered ashtray contents’ and a cigarette carton,” according to the New York Post.
Her fines had started rolling in just a few months after she’d moved into her three-story townhouse in 2017, and the trash problem had persisted for nearly five years. In total, she’d received 32 tickets, with the fines amounting to $3,010. Even though she’d been worth an estimated $570 million, Swift and her army of lawyers hadn’t exactly let the fines slide. They’d managed to contest and shake off $200 worth of penalties, but the rest had been left standing.
But before anyone threw shade at Taylor, some fans and Tribeca residents had come to her defense, arguing the trash wasn’t entirely her fault. “It’s probably the fans waiting for her and smoking while they’re bored,” said Christine O’Connor, one of her defenders. With Swift’s fans regularly camping out on Franklin Street for a glimpse of their idol, it seemed likely that they were leaving the mess behind. Some even suspected the paparazzi were to blame, with their cigarette butts scattered around. Who had time to clean when you were busy living your best Midnights life?
Despite the defense, the records didn’t lie. Swift’s townhouse had received more sanitation tickets than any other building on the block, with inspectors noting everything from smushed cigarette butts to discarded newspapers. Still, some neighbors had raised eyebrows at the ticketing process. “I lived on White Street, and there were other people who deserved [being ticketed] more,” said Tribeca resident Rebecca Heller. “And they were clearly not changing their behavior.” It seemed Taylor wasn’t the only one who might’ve gotten a raw deal.
Before Swift had moved in, the townhouse had been home to former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who rented it for $50,000 a month while under house arrest in 2011 (talk about drama). But ever since Taylor had converted the space into a private entrance for her neighboring penthouse, the mess had stuck around. While Swift’s condo next door wasn’t directly responsible for the trash, she had been responsible for keeping the area in front of her townhouse tidy. And the city inspectors had definitely kept a close eye on that.
Despite the mess, Swift’s image hadn’t taken much of a hit. Neighbors like David Aldea, Swift’s one-time landlord at 23 Cornelia St., had praised her as “nothing but a perfect tenant the entire time and lovely to deal with.”
