UPDATE: Less than a day after Park Hill residents shared their concerns, the piles of trash were cleaned up.
DENVER— Residents of the Park Hill neighborhood are fed up with growing piles of trash in a neighborhood alley.
Sherri Kitzis and her grandson, 9-year-old Taveon Burrill, pointed out mounds of trash behind their home off East 35th Avenue and Leyden Street. Kitzis wore a mask while Burrill pulled his shirt over his nose to block out the pungent odor in the air.
Kitzis says she’s been dealing with the garage on and off for more than a year, but she says the last six months have gotten worse.
“I mean, look at this, would you want to come home to that?” Kitzis said, as she pointed at the mounds of trash. “It’s rancid, you can smell it all the way down the block.”
“I feel mad, why would you do this?” Burrill said.
Kitzis says she recently picked up countless needles so the children that live in the area don’t get hurt.
Mattresses, a Chevy vehicle grill and garbage bags litter the alley. One neighbor says she can’t even sit in her backyard because of the disgusting smell, an odor she says only got stronger with the recent heatwave.
Heather Tramutolo parks her car in the alley and worries about the random trash covering the pavement.
“I don’t really want to drive over a door and puncture my tires,” Tramutolo said.
Tramutolo and Kitzis say they have called and emailed the city to no avail. Kitzis says she got a call back once last spring, but she can’t get anyone to come out and clean up the recent mess.
“I’ve emailed, I’ve called, at one point I got told, 'go clean it up yourself' which was fun,” Tramutolo said.
A spokesperson with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s office said on Thursday afternoon they were alerted about the issues only 24 hours earlier.
Denver7 also reached out to Nancy Kuhn, the director of the City & County of Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. She stated in an email that Denver’s Solid Waste Management received a notification earlier in the day and sent someone to investigate. Kuhn says it’s possible someone is illegally dumping trash in the alley.
“If you are the one dumping, find a dumpster; if you are the city, please help us clean it up," Tramutolo said. "I really don’t want to drive into trash every single day.”
