(WBFF) -- Three years living in Baltimore’s Highlandtown neighborhood and Rodger Heath says he has never seen it like this.
“It reminds me of the middle ages when they sent sanitation they did not have proper sanitation,” he said.
There’s trash everywhere and for just about everybody you talk to here.
“It’s demoralizing, people should not have to live like this,” said Allison Fomich.
Fomich has been calling the City for weeks about illegal dumping and garbage filled alleyways spilling into the streets and sidewalks.
Trash pickup she says is often delayed or missed but the real issue is the recycling. For her it’s been two weeks, for others it’s been a month.
“The recycling crews are not priority right now because the trash is such a problem,” she said.
Add to that, “It’s drawing rats,” said neighbor George Koester.
“There’s definitely a correlation between sanitation and disease,” said Heath.
Along with the waste other problems are also piling up.
“We got a pandemic and the government shuts down, they’re not doing the trash pickup, they’re not doing the recyclables correctly but they are giving out parking tickets,” said Koester.
Fox 45 called DPW about the complaints we’ve received from neighborhood after neighborhood and what’s been on-going problem. Last week DPW told us they were bringing in outside contractors to catch up, we asked for an update and they sent us this statement:
DPW is aware and we intend to continue collecting recycling throughout the City. However, due to staff shortages, the primary focus has to be the collection of trash.
DPW is also collecting recycling at 3 of our Citizen Drop Off Convenient Centers.
We hope to resume all regular collections once we are fully staffed and/or contractors are on board to assist with collections. Two contractors are expected to come on board September and October. We are working diligently to normalize all collections soon. We thank residents for their abundance of patience.
“I mean it’s not like this neighborhood gives up and I mean we do fight for what we can but we have to be met halfway by DPW,” said Fomich.
