HMO rubbish - has any community solves this problem?

[Emi1e]

For years a few of us permanent residents have endlessly tried to deal with rubbish-related problems associated with HMOs. We report to local councillors, we report to the council, we litte-pick, we deal with the bins, we educate new tenants, we try to win them over, we provide written guidance in their first language... but the problems continue.
Has any council or community found a solution to this?

The main issues are temporary residents:-

• not following rules regarding bin use, so they don’t get emptied.
• using front gardens rather than back gardens to store their bins and excess rubbish.
• fly-tipping.

Landlords:-

• renovating student properties every summer so that the street is full of ripped out houses, mattresses, skips etc.
• saying tenants’ rubbish is a council issue, not theirs.

Blocking up rear access so some tenants can only use front gardens for bins.

• (Basically making their fortune at the expense of the residents and taking no social responsibility).

In this weather the stench is horrible and it’s getting me down.

Hollow laughter

Also can I just stand up regarding the "halfway house" HMO. We have one in our local community run by Wallich. The property is ring fenced for homeless at risk people. Preferable to various other types of tenants as they don't make a fuss, they keep it tidy from the outside. Local neighbours have been given 24 hour number to raise any issues and there is cctv fitted to the communal areas so there can be no false accusations and no dispute over activity. Wallich are responsible for upkeep and littering etc.

So regarding the snotty halfway house comment, I'd rather my neighbours than yours

Ar, just lost a long post explaining my comment but suffice to say the short version was that it was a crass and shortsighted thing to say, you were right to call me on it and I apologise.

@Emi1e if your apology was aimed at my post, I thank you. We had a lot of opposition in the local community when it opened but it rubs along well with us now.

I feel your pain! Where we are flytipping is the norm and its household waste and every other sort of thing you can imagine, beds, mattresses, shop fridges, we've seen waste with used condoms, nappies etc. The bins smell so bad we cannot open our front windows, in the heat it's unbearable, all you can smell is putrescine from badly disposed of meat. On bin day it's unbearable. The flies have been so bad we can no longer use the back garden. Our own bins are at the back and regularly cleaned but nobody else does theirs.

There are multiple HMOs and houses with very large families sharing, some are likely illegal as there can be up to ten people or more in some, landlords are happy to turn a blind eye round here and the council due to cuts rarely bothers now.

We now have rats in abundance so have to be very careful when opening doors in case they get in. We cannot leave the garden door open even to just pin out the washing. Fortunately, we have a cat so that would hopefully deter them. We, of course, have urban foxes as well so any rubbish bags are torn open if they contain food waste. Near the bus stop, the raised bed has a permanent and revolving pile of waste, one lot is cleared and the next day another appears, the photo below is a pile from a week ago that is still there. It is actually quite small as there is usually more, there'll likely be more after the weekend.

I used to report it but gave up after it became too numerous and frequent. We're solving this for ourselves as we're moving out of the country to a rural area where there aren't many people. I don't want to ever live near lots of people again - ever!

Sportinguista
Please confirm location of these properties and i will happily take action
If there is indeed refuse like this it should be reported to environmental health
Overcrowding of hmo is an offence
The council will issue an enforcement notice
So at the risk of more 'hollow laughter' from
Emi1e
Please advise the location address and council

I could but it would extend to the whole area and beyond with likely around 100 or more properties, it's absolutely rampant. I've complained to the council and beyond sending a 'flytipping' lorry round they don't do anything. And of course, it's back the next day. DH was speaking to one of the PCSOs and he said they had 'lost control' in the area. It's got to the extent where there are no solutions at least for us. We're lucky, we have the option to move out to somewhere lovely but many won't. The council do know how bad it is but beyond a yearly 'publicity' clean up all they do is stick a plaster over it and hope it doesn't get 'too bad'.

Thank you for offering but I gave up a long time ago when I realised I could end up spending most of the day reporting stuff and I needed to invest my time in my business rather than that.

B9ddy do you not think that type of rubbish (mainly comprising of black bags of bagged rubbish) is at least partly due to the local authority's failure to provide effective waste collection services? Its bagged up (mostly) but theres obviously been nowhere to put it. On the continent, people in towns and cities either have very frequent rubbish collections, or communal street bins which are emptied frequently to put away. In the UK, we have moved towards less frequent collections and a multitude of different bins which require a lot of storage and of course fining people. Its sad when people have to be coerced in this way when they have bagged up their rubbish ready to go and the local authority doesn't provide a service which works to take it away, or give them somewhere to keep it.

Sportinguista I live in the countryside and fly tipping is a regular problem. Yes, people will actually drive specially to a rural laybye or lane to tip out leave their old sofa or fridge. They also throw rubbish out of their cars. I would say that they throw it out onto the footpaths, but my local authority has allowed the footpath along our rural road to become so overgrown, you can't actually walk on it any more. The verges are cut once per year (I know that, because I asked if it could be done and I was told it couldn't, because our annual cut happened in June). Its a mess of weeds, grass and litter. I've gone out and picked up the litter, its a strange mixture of MacDonalds stuff, lots of bottles and cans and takeaway containers, with the occasional plastic donut box...

@IncandescentShadow odd question, are you complaining about the grass cutting/footpath to your county or community council?

County councils are in charge of rubbish pickup, reporting flytipping etc. They set the budget for grass cutting in council owned areas.
Our local Community Council has been made aware that the county councils grass cutting is not sufficient for some areas so ha e authorised a private company to do additional cuts so that communal areas can be enjoyed. Check who your town/community councillors are and contact them. They have to provide contact details on their Web page by law if that helps

Incandescent, the rubbish etc round here is a whole different level, the area itself has become something else over the years. As the PCSO said they have lost control over pretty much all aspects. Drug dealing goes unchallenged, I see people just walking out of shops with shoplifted goods, we never get any peace and forget leaving your windows open at night in the heatwave, even if the smell wasn't bad enough you still wouldn't get any sleep from constant noise! We're going even if we have to live in a Yurt!