City crews clean up piles of garbage from North Omaha apartment complex
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) — The City of Omaha had to bring in heavy equipment to clean up piles of garbage at the Burt Street Apartments.
Dump trucked lined the street near 30th and Burt, waiting their turn.
What the big equipment couldn’t load up, city workers had to rake up to get all of the trash and garbage off the ground.
The conditions were just foul. Flies that have grown fat here dot the walls of the apartment buildings, and there’s no telling what crawled out from under the pizza boxes.
Omaha City Councilmember Danny Begley is disgusted by the whole thing.
“I used to deliver newspapers down here when I was a kid. I grew up right down the street, and it was sad to see when I first came up on it, and I got the pictures sent to me on the negligence by the property owner, the sanitation for the souls that live here,” Begley said.
“It’s unfortunate and it’s shameful that a property owner would not take of the simple basics of trash and sanitation for the people that live here.”
City officials revealed the trash service was cut off at the apartments because of an issue of non-payment.
The City of Omaha had no choice, they had to step in to clean up the garbage.
“The city did all their processes. They notified the property owner, they didn’t take care of it, so now we have our great city crews out here today cleaning it up, and the bill for this will be submitted directly to the property owner when we’re done,” Begley said.
It took time for a city workers to clean up a couple parcels, and they did a good job, but there are five parcels in all.
People who live in the apartments are happy that something is finally being done.
“Up till now, we have been waiting. Nothing happened, and we told her the mess like that is not good. It’s not good for the parking lot, it’s not good for the city, it’s not good for us. We, the residents,” Tenant James Kwon said.
Fletcher Goolsby is also a tenant in the building. He’s happy the mess is cleaned up, but he said they still need a place to put their trash.
“There’s a whole bunch of people in this apartment complex, and we gotta have a place to put trash,” Goolsby said.
“Everybody’s just throwing their trash down over there again. We need some dumpsters over there so that doesn’t happen again.”
City crews took out seven dump truck loads of garbage and trash. It took crews about four hours to clean up five parcels of land around the Burt Street apartments.
All that work will cost the property owners a little more than $2,600.
As far as dumpsters coming in, the property manager tells officials the bill has been paid, and dumpsters should be delivered soon.
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