Residents of one Cardiff street have complained about a mountain of uncollected rubbish which has been building up outside their houses for the last seven weeks. Some locals have spoken about the "nauseating stench" and the fact "huge rats" have been seen "having the time of their lives" amongst the flytipped broken bin bags.
In fact, the pile of refuse has now become so big that it's completely blocking the nearby pavement on Drawlings Close in St Mellons, forcing passersby with both prams and wheelchairs to walk into the road to get around it. One person, who asked not to be named, said that that problem lies with the lock on a bin store belonging to the Hafod Housing flats having been broken for months.
"As a result people have been coming from all over to dump their rubbish here," she said. "I've seen them turn up with bin bag after bin bag.
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"I've even seen builders' vans turning up an offloading lots of painting stuff and staff from a nearby food place turn up with unwanted produce - they couldn't be more blatant about it. The smell is really bad too - quite nauseating - and I've noticed several rats, big ones. There were a couple the other day that looked like they were having the time of their lives in amongst that pile.
"I'm also getting lots of flies in my flat because of it. Nothing like during the summer though, which is the first time the lock got broken. We had 12 weeks worth of rubbish build up outside back then. It was awful." She added that despite constant complaints by the local residents to both Hafod Housing and the Cardiff Council, "the only promises have been lip service."
"There are so many children living around here who are faced with this health hazard. It is obstructing a dropped curb and also forcing prams, wheelchairs and pedestrians to walk on a road near a bend."
A spokesperson for Cardiff Council said: "The council contacted Hafod Housing back in August this year to report that the bin store wasn’t secure and that the site was attracting flytipping.
"Clearly the situation remains unsolved. We council has sent down a team to clear the flytipping and the bins will emptied today. The council doesn't manage this bin compound and further attempts will be made to contact Hafod Housing to ensure that the site is secured."
A spokesperson for Hafod added, "We are sorry for the problems some residents in the area have been experiencing and are working with them to find a solution to the matter. We can confirm that the refuse has now been cleared.
"As a priority, we have set up a meeting with the local authority to discuss the refuse collection. We will be working with them to install CCTV to monitor the situation and will be looking into whether the bins are fit for purpose."
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