Walworth County, WI Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

Section 50-112 gives the health officer, or a designated representative, authority to declare and condemn a dwelling or structure unfit for human habitation and to post a placard on it giving public notice of that condemnation. This power supplements the broader human health hazard provisions in Sections 50-106 and 50-107, and it connects to the human health hazard list in Section 50-105, which flags dilapidated, unsafe or unsanitary housing as a potential hazard. Once a structure is condemned and placarded, five specific consequences follow: it must be vacated within a reasonable time set by the health officer; no one may continue to occupy, rent, or lease it; the health officer alone can remove the placard once the underlying conditions are abated or corrected; the structure cannot be used for human habitation again until the health officer gives written approval and removes the placard; and defacing or removing the placard without authorization is itself prohibited.

Investigation of a suspected human health hazard, including an unfit dwelling, follows the procedures the health officer establishes under Section 50-106, and enforcement under Section 50-107 lets the health officer inspect, take samples, and, if entry is refused, ask the Corporation Counsel to obtain a special inspection warrant from the circuit court. Article III of Chapter 50 is adopted under the authority of Wis. ch. 251, and appeals from a department order run through the Wis. ch. 68 appeal procedure described in Section 50-109.