Huge Garbage Pile At NYCHA Building Creates Awful Stench
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Elected officials are calling on the New York City Housing Authority to step up and clean up.
This after huge piles of trash grew at the Sonia Sotomayor Houses in the Bronx, CBS2's Reena Roy reported.
The Department of Sanitation and NYCHA workers arrived on the scene Sunday evening, but not before massive piles of garbage sat around and rotted for days.
"It really stinks. It's horrible," Iris Rojas said.
"It smells like a bunch of cabbage and lot of dirty diapers. Nasty," Bella Rojas added.
The odor was so pungent Iris Rojas rushed her young daughter away in the middle of our interview.
"Cover your nose. Come on, I feel like there's something in the air," she said. "We have to get going. It smells."
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People who live here say the collection area on Watson Avenue near Beach Avenue is often unpleasant, but not usually like this.
"I'm not surprised because it's always very stinky over here. Trash always looks like it's going to go up into the trees," Sotomayor Houses resident Jordan Robinson said. "But this is the worst I've seen."
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An emergency team of NYCHA and Department of Sanitation workers were on the scene Sunday night, just hours after Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. tweeted a video.
"Somebody in City Hall just doesn't care," Diaz said. "Have the New York City Housing Authority do their job."
A NYCHA spokesperson told CBS2's Roy the trash compactors at the housing complex have been broken, causing the pileup.
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In an interview with WNYC Radio on Friday. Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged more needs to be done in the new year for NYCHA residents.
"The situation for our public housing residents is not what it should be," de Blasio said. "It's unacceptable to me. We made a lot of investments. We've made a lot of changes. We have new leadership, but we've got to turn the corner in 2019."
A NYCHA spokesperson said while the machines are being repaired the agency will be keeping a close eye on this garbage collection area to make sure it doesn't build up like this again.
