Trash piles up in Olney neighborhood

The rats. The roaches. Or the possums. Take your pick, Eddie Gaymon has seen it all out his front door.

"I shouldn't have to look at trash outside my window" says Gaymon who lives across from the Regency Village Apartments on North 18th St. in Olney.

He is talking about the heaps of garbage found strewn all over the property on 5600 Ogontz Avenue.

"Oh yes. I have mice." says one resident who says the trash problem is getting worse by the day. She's been complaining to the city and apartment managers for years.

"I just have to get out of here. I can't live in a place like this" she added.

The garbage is seen all over the property along with stray cats feasting on what fell out of the open trash bags and a broken dumpster was overflowing with trash. The problem has gotten so bad that the trash from one side of the street is blowing across into neighbors yards who are getting fined by the city for other people's trash.

"It's nasty. I come out here every weekend I'm raking the leaves up with the trash and then the possums come, the alley cats it's just a mess around here I should't have to live like this" says Gaymon.

Fox 29 was rolling when a man tossed 2 bags of trash off a 4th floor balcony.

"See right up there. It's happening before your eyes" says Earnest Bias, a ward committee person in Olney.

"This building is a disgrace and they need to do something about it" says Bias.

Fox 29 checked the property with the Department of Licenses and Inspections and found pages of prior violations including a long history of trash and sanitation problems.

We tried getting answers from the property manager but we were told to come back tomorrow.

Neighbors say the issue is no longer a code issue but a safety concern. One that appears to be falling on deaf ears.

"Something has to be done. Something has to be done. Because this is just too much, it's too much" says neighbor Kim Mumford.

So far the property owner has yet to return our calls to Fox 29.