Pitt County, NC Parking Rules: Abandoned Vehicles (2026)

The ordinance, adopted as Pitt County Solid Waste & Recycling Ordinance No. 00 (§ 1). Its stated purpose is to stop junk vehicles from harboring disease, sheltering mosquitoes, rats and other pests, and from trapping children in unopenable spaces such as trunks and hoods (§ 2). The ordinance governs placing, disposing, discarding and abandoning junk motor vehicles in Pitt County, but it does not reach inside any municipality's corporate limits unless that municipality's governing body adopts it by resolution (§ 3), so Greenville, Winterville, Ayden and Farmville each handle junk vehicles under their own codes.

Exceptions cover vehicles inside an enclosed building, vehicles necessary to a lawfully operated business on its own premises, and vehicles in a storage depository the County itself maintains (§ 4). Under § 5, an official designated by the Board of Commissioners may remove a junk vehicle to a storage area; removal from private property needs the written request of the owner, lessee or occupant unless the Board has declared the vehicle a health or safety hazard. The County must hold a removed vehicle at least 15 days, during which the owner can reclaim it by showing proof of ownership and paying removal, storage and administrative costs.

After 15 unclaimed days the vehicle may be destroyed or otherwise disposed of by Board ordinance or resolution, with proceeds retained in the general fund, and the County must notify the State Division of Motor Vehicles within 15 days of final disposition. Section 6 shields the County and its designees from civil or criminal liability to an owner, lienholder or other claimant for disposing of a vehicle under this ordinance.