Changes to the laws were made in the 13th and 14th centuries to also apply to any interference with land owned by the King of England, which included most public roads and other areas.
But modern implementations of the ordinances in the late 20th and 21st centuries have returned to the original subject of misuse of property, particularly under the type of housing that is leased.
[2] The current implementation of the ordinances first began being passed in the 1980s as a method to deter crimes involving the drug trade in various major cities.
This led to the first nuisance ordinance under the modern usage being passed in 1987 in Portland, Oregon, as a method to evict all of the tenants in claimed drug houses.
[5] One of the earliest recorded cases in the United States to deal with a property nuisance ordinance law was Bouley v. Young-Sabourin in 2005 that involved a tenant being evicted after she called the police because of a domestic violence attack from her husband.
The landlord then sent an eviction notice because calling the police was a violation of a provision within the lease contract that disallowed tenants from letting the premises be used for "unlawful purposes".
This not only caused an escalation in the level of abuse, but also reduced the safety and quality of the neighborhoods as a whole and resulted in greater criminal activity in the municipalities in question.