Outdoor Room For Rent

  Thank you to my wonderful cousin for spending a day of his vacation picking up trash with us!  As always, it is a pleasure to have him in town.  When he returmed home, he was so generous as to send a box stuffed full of work gloves for the Beautification Crew.

6 Blocks and Counting

We have been trying to expand our efforts to surrounding blocks to make a more significant impact on our neighborhood.  We are excited to report that six neighbors on the 500-600 block of Irving have joined us to keep our neighborhood clean.  With this new manpower, this weekend all of us were able to clean Irving and Kenyon St from Sherman to Park Place, the most ground we've covered to date.  Thank you 610 Kenyon! 

Again, more dumping in our alley.  At least we found mail with addresses in the dumped trash.   The usual suspects.

You Are Not Alone

At the behest of neighbors from the 500-600 block of Irving, I checked out the alley behind their house.  It's safe to say that we're not the only ones with dumping problems.  In that alley, the rats live in the lap of luxury and lounge on old mattresses.

3112 Warder, which appears to be abandoned, has invited illegal dumping behind it.  In the front,  broken and boarded up windows.  In the back, shown below, someone has dumped a couch and chair.

                                                                      Front

                                                                 
  
                                                                         Back

Maybe they are trying to compost in the alley...

 Thanks to DPW for picking up all the bulk trash we gathered this past weekend.  It's great to look out our windows and not see a pile of junk staring back at us.

Despite our efforts and DPW's booklets, our neighbors still are placing trash in the alley 4 days early and without the protection of a Supercan.  As a result, animals tear open the bags and allow the trash to blow around the alley.

Status Quo

    During our cleanup yesterday, we were sad and frustrated to see that there were still many flagrant sanitation violations. We counted at least seven violations in the alley, probably three which were ticketable.   We're not talking about open trash can lids, but several instances of illegal dumping including mildew coated textbooks thrown into a trash can (that has been sitting there for two weeks), a broken table, a broken drawer, shattered aquarium, hoolahoops, and last but not least, open plastic shopping bags full of broken beer bottles--and shattered glass all over the ground.

 Above: The aquarium light left in the alley next to 426 Kenyon--matching the broken aquarium that was dumped two weeks ago.  Don't worry, you can still see the aquarium, it's still sitting out there.

Below, we gathered all the trash, bagged it properly, and left it for bulk trash to pick up tomorrow.  Hopefully.

Below: Our clean up on the surrounding 2 blocks

Are DPW's sanitation booklets effective? You decide.

The picture above is the trash scene two weeks after our meeting at CM Graham's office and a little less than a week after residents received thick booklets on DPWs programs.  It is unclear if DPW discussed the trash rules with residents as DPW had promised, not only because of the manner in which people disposed of their trash this week but also because a handful of people who were home last Monday reported that they received booklets but no one from DPW came to their door.

The pictures below are from Saturday, April 12--2 days after trash collection.  Note not only the lovely donated, vintage aquarium but also the trash cans littering the alley without any penalty.

The picture below was taken this afternoon.  426 Kenyon's can is filled with loose trash, old text books etc.

The pictures below are from this morning.  Looks like a few other bags were added to the mix. Monday, Monday...