Philly has a backlog of 34,000 abandoned-car complaints — and the city has no solution

PHILADELPHIA — The party was over in Germantown, but one stretch limo never made it home.

Since January, that rusting, silver chauffeur car has been moldering by a community garden on Hansberry Street in the Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood, taking up several parking spots and posing an eyesore for neighbors. Duct tape secures its rear bumper and lights, its back window is busted and patched over with trash bags.

“It was funny on the first day,” volunteer garden keeper Claudia Ginanni said of the decaying Lincoln Royale. “It’s not funny on the 90th.”