DNA service sniffs out dog owners who dont clean up after their pets

WASHINGTON Joe Gillmer had a problem. A big, stinky, sole-troubling problem plaguing the condos, where he serves as board vice president.

Dog waste was in the vestibule, in the elevator, and this particularly incensed Gillmer in the garage beside handicapped parking, making life difficult for residents with physical challenges.

What were we going to do? Gillmer says. Put up 13 cameras for $100,000 with the slim chance of catching the guy?

Instead, the Midtown Alexandria Station condo association hired a service called PooPrints to match evidence from the crime scene to registered DNA taken from all condo dogs.

Gillmer has heard all the jokes: CSI: Manure, you name it. I got a lot of criticism, he recalls. They called me the Czar of Poop.'

But here's the thing: When the service was started a year ago, we only had to test one sample, Gillmer says of the only scatological crime since committed. This in a building with 368 units and about 600 human and 60 canine residents. That's the sort of success that law enforcement agencies can only dream of. Now, no one dares pooh-pooh the progress that has been made.

Among the great unresolved conflicts between neighbors is determining the provenance of unwanted, unseemly and often unwittingly trampled dog detritus.

Sometimes it leads neighbors to court, as in the case of a 2011 Fairfax dispute.

And sometimes the answer is treating a trouble area like a crime scene.

Thanks in part to a Tennessee scientist with the impeccable moniker of Chesleigh Winfree, managers at housing developments and apartment buildings and members of homeowner associations and condo boards such as Gillmer are using DNA samples to solve the mystery of nasty end products.

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DNA service sniffs out dog owners who dont clean up after their pets