I know someone who refers to the scene of the sprawling Mystic party that drew a response from numerous police departments last week as “the dumpster houses,” because of the unsightly dumpster at the end of the blacktop front yard.

Indeed, the three, two-family houses at the bottom of School Street in Mystic, right off Route 27, look very much like a not-so-nice motel, with big numbers in front of each unit and numbered parking spaces laid out on the paved yards.

The six units are owned by investors from Long Island, who paid $2.85 million for them in December, buying them from a Waterbury investor who paid $1.69 million for them less than a year earlier, from the local Realtor who made them into short-term rentals.

Dime Bank financed the latest purchase, according to Stonington land records, with a $1.96 million commercial loan, with a monthly payment, until it readjusts with interest rate changes in 2028, of $11,757.28.

The two-bedroom units are listed on Airbnb, for a nightly rate of $350. You self check in, with a code, according to Airbnb.

The dumpster houses are located in a neighborhood zoned for residential use.

I know. I know. Shame on Stonington for allowing this flagrant disrespect for the principles of zoning to continue.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but I put a lot of it on First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough, who recently led a failed effort to try to regulate short-term rentals, blaming the town’s lawyers for taking the teeth out of a proposed ordinance that would have required some kind of residency at the properties.

It’s time for new lawyers, or better yet, new town leaders who can hire lawyers who won’t cower at threats from vested interests who are putting businesses in the town’s residential neighborhoods.

Communities the world over have successfully regulated, limited or banned short-term rentals. Why can’t Stonington?

The Noank Zoning Commission, in the next town over, banned them all together in 2021, and no one has sued them.

I got Ben Broad of Keter Point Partners LLC of Port Washington, N.Y., owner of the units on School Street and School Place, on the phone Tuesday to ask about his properties, and, wow, was he mad.

He said a story in The Day about the party at the properties ― Stonington police said they were were so overwhelmed by the big party that they called in neighboring town departments ― was a “hit” job.

It was kind of hard to ask questions or follow exactly what he was saying, because he was yelling so much. But I did hear him say that Stonington should be appreciative of people investing in the town’s tourism economy.

And he complained about an “illegal effort to rezone properties,” which I took to be the proposed ordinance limiting short-term rentals with residency requirements, which the first selectwoman punted on.

He also warned he was recording the call and suggested he could pursue a libel action.

I also reached out to Dime Bank, because I was startled that the institution would write a commercial loan for a rental property in a residential neighborhood of Stonington.

It seems like a risky loan, given the inclination by so many in town to stop the practice. I also wondered whether the bank has similar loans in town and whether it was involved in lobbying to stop the ordinance that could have blocked businesses like the one it is financing on School Street.

A bank representative said no one was available to talk about it.

I think many people in town are fed up.

It’s a good thing there’s an election coming.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com