Thursday, March 28, 2024

IT MATTERS TO MARIA: Residents want junk moved

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A GOVERNMENT day nursery and a family at Pinelands, St Michael, say they are unhappy with a mechanic’s build-up of a junkyard next door.

Old, rusty vehicles, pieces of metal and other junk are littered across land in the area and they are harbouring rodents and mosquitoes, residents say.

Tahara Callender, a mother of three, said her home had been invaded by rodents.

“It is affecting me badly,” she said. “On many occasions Ihave to deal with rats and mice. The other day I was cleaning my cupboard and one of the children leave the door open and some of my groceries get bite up.”

She said she had telephoned the environmental health office at the Sir Winston Scott Polyclinic on several occasions to ask for an officer to visit the area.

“From the time I realise I was getting these problems I call the health inspectors on many occasions and they say they would come, but I haven’t seen them,” she said.

“I had chikungunya last year and I was pregnant then and my baby born and still they ain’t come.”

She said at one point she noticed that her house was full of mosquitoes and when she inspected her premises she discovered the same neighbour’s well water was running into her yard. “The well water was breeding mosquitoes and I had to spray it,” she fumed.

Pointing to several old trucks on the property, Callender said they were there before her oldest son was born and he was now 12 years old. “If [the owner] is not doing anything with these old things he should carry them to the dump,” she said.

Her uncle spoke to the mechanic about cleaning his premises, she said, but he responded that they should clean under the family’s shed.

However, they could not access the shed because a lot of junk belonging to the mechanic was actually leaning on it.

As a result, her uncle and a number of young men from the neighbourhood took on the arduous task of debushing the area two weeks ago so that she could get some relief.

“I have young children that does be sick and it is really frustrating to see that every minute I have to be dealing with rats, mice, mosquitoes, all that stuff. He showing papers that he own out here. well, that means they should fine him for not keeping his land clean,” Callender said.

An official at the Delores “Ma”Worrell Day Nursery said officials were also not pleased with the way the area looked since some of the old vehicles and pieces of old metal were next to the nursery and could be a health risk.

Efforts were made to speak to the mechanic, whose name was given as “Tony”, but he was not at home. However, his mother Norma Morris said no rodents were coming from the old vehicles which her son had.

“He does clean out here and he does not do any work when the nursery open. It is only two old trucks he got out there, and everything that happen out here they always blaming my son,” she said.

mariabradshaw@nationnews.com

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