Somebody take out the trash, please.
That is what residents, Community Board 11 members, and store owners near the area of 2134 Barnes Avenue are asking.
The vacant lot, which is attached to a privately owned home and sits across the street from the Van Nest Library, has recently become a neighborhood dumping ground.
Andrea Siegel of Zive Pharmacy said the tenant above the store has decided to leave because the smell from the garbage has become overwhelming.
“The property is kept like a pig sty,” Siegel said. “There is very rarely anyone sent over there to clean it up.”
According to Siegel, she has also received rodent complaints from the tenants upstairs.
“I haven’t seen any, thankfully,” she said. “About a month ago, someone from the property came and cleaned the outside but not the backyard, and it is still disgusting. It is just not a good situation.”
According to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the building failed a compliance inspection on February 8 and was issued a “notice of violation.”
The inspector wrote that there was “heavy accumulation of paper debris, plastic debris, car parts, exposed garbage stored in torn bags, and dead tree branches were observed in the front and rear yards of the vacant building.”
The report did not mention any signs of rodent infestation.
According to Community Board 11 district manager Jeremy Warneke, complaints made to the property owner have not yielded any resolution of the matter.
“It’s horrendous,” Warneke said. “It has been like that for two months. How many times do we have to reach out to the property owner? I know times are tough and the economy is bad, but they still have a legal obligation to maintain their property.”
President of the Pelham Parkway South Community Association Edith Blitzer said the area is becoming a concern to her because there are a lot of children in the area and piled up garbage can very often lead to rodents.
“I know that Jeremy has tried to get in touch with the owners many times,” Blitzer said. “Every now and then someone will come out and clean it up, but then after a few months it happens all over again.”
Blitzer said the other concern she has is that nobody comes to shovel the property when it snows.
