Chemical rubbish remains dumped outside a Swindon woman’s house despite month-old promises to move it.
Jane Coulthard says the bottles of bleach and degreaser, mixed with a rotting mattress and debris in a Haig Close driveway, “stink” in the summer heat and attract flies.
A local businessman, Callum Forbes, says the chemicals are his but he cannot find storage for them because there are so many.
Ms Coulthard said: “Nothing has changed. I don’t know what I can do anymore. There’s rubbish bags in there too, there’s a lot of flies. With this heat, it stinks.
“I'm waiting for the rain to come. That’s when I’m going to suffer.”
Ms Coulthard was speaking during the hottest week of the year yet when temperatures hit 27 degrees in June.
But when it rains like it has done this weekend, she says the chemicals leak into her drive and rot her fence posts.
(Image: Newsquest)
One change is a new fence which a third neighbour erected around the rubbish.
“He was disgusted about it as well. He said, ‘I can’t look at this anymore’”, Ms Coulthard explained.
Meanwhile, a tree in the middle of the litter is growing bigger limiting the Swindon householder's access to her own fence.
Ms Coulthard said: “At the end of the day, it's a driveway, it's not a field.”
“I don’t like living like this. And when I come to sell my house, I’m not going to sell it very quick am I? It just all gets you down a bit, that’s all.”
(Image: Newsquest)
Callum Forbes, local businessman and resident, admits the chemicals are his left over from a liquidated business.
He said: “It’s being moved, it is just finding storage for it. It’s chemicals so it is not that straightforward.
“We can't just put them anywhere because of the sheer amount of chemicals there is.
“We can’t put them in our garage because it is full of the landlord’s stuff, that he will empty but he doesn’t. We can’t even get down there because of the blue van parked.”
Rubbish dumped outside Swindon home for two years leaves resident 'ashamed'
Mr Forbes told the Adver on April 19 the other rubbish was fly-tipped or is the landlord’s, so not his responsibility. It irritates him too, preventing access to his back gate.
Furthermore, rather than helping the situation the new fence erected by the neighbour is actually blocking Mr Forbes’ access to the rubbish.
He said: “We've offered to get a skip and clear it for the landlord but I'm sorry, I'm not going to put my hand in my pocket for someone else to clean it.
“I'm not going to be pressured by anyone to remove anything.”
The landlord did not respond to an opportunity to comment.
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