TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa man is hoping to get part of his neighborhood cleaned up after he said people are dumping their trash in a yard near his house.
“It used to be a nice area as far as keeping the yards clean and mowed," said Brian Edwards.
Old mattresses, furniture and a tire are just a few of the items on the lawn near Edwards's home north of Tulsa. These aren’t the decorative lawn ornaments he wants to see in a neighbor’s yard.
He said the man who lived in this house passed away earlier this year, and ever since then, people have been dumping their trash in the yard.
“You alternate your route because you don’t want to see that," Edwards said. "And it’s sad that people don’t have more respect for other people’s property and neighborhoods. You want to keep it clean and nice.”
Not only is it not pleasant to look at, but Edwards is concerned about new tenants that could call the trash home.
“I believe it can bring rodents and things that would be drawn to something like this because there’s no telling what is in the debris they have placed here," Edwards said. "And so we look at it as a safety and health hazard.”
Edwards reached out to the Tulsa Health Department in early June but said it took a while to speak with someone. When he did, he was told it would take even longer for the pile to be picked up.
“That department relayed that they would come out but it would probably be two or three weeks to just look at it," Edwards said. "And that it could take several weeks longer to actually remove this property.”
2 News Oklahoma Problem Solvers also reached out to THD about the issue. Since then, THD has surveyed the property. It said there are a series of lengthy steps it has to go through before the trash can be removed. It’s now out to bid to contractors to see how much it will cost to clean up.
“But that process is also a couple of weeks, unfortunately," said Adam Austin, division chief for THD Environmental Public Health. "And then one of the issues that we’re running into is contractors are also backed up. So everything, unfortunately, right now is just taking a little bit longer.”
Austin said it's hard to know when the trash and yard will be cleaned up due to the backup for contractors, but it will hopefully be done in the next few weeks.
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