Trash buildup behind one central Lubbock apartment complex has some nearby homeowners upset with the apartment’s tenants and management, who say that it’s a problem they have been dealing with for months now.
Paul Lively has lived in the neighborhood off 18th Street and Elkhart Avenue for 10 years now. Behind his house is an alleyway between his home and the University Club apartment complex. He said that it is not uncommon to walk through his backyard gate and find piles of different kinds of trash littered along the fence, such as beer cans, unwanted furniture and even diapers.
He shared that he understands that through city’s code enforcement, the trash in that area is the responsibility of the homeowner, but as Lively shared, continuous dumping by others is not making it any easier.
“The problem is that the residents bring their trash from the apartments and they don’t dump it in the dumpster, they put it on the ground bringing out large objects, mattresses, dressers bookcases,” said Lively. “They put it on the ground beside the dumpster and we have to pick it up, It’s a weekly thing. it’s constant. Two to three times a week we have to clean it up.”
Lining the fence are blue and brown dumpsters; the blue are intended for the apartment residents, and the brown for homeowners. What Lively shared that he sees often is residents from the apartment complex either using the brown dumpsters or simply dumping the trash on the grass behind the fence.
“It’s laziness. I just want the apartments to take responsibility for what’s going on over here. I want them to encourage their residents to use the blue dumpsters and not the brown dumpsters and to not dump their stuff on the ground. I mean, that’s the big thing.”
However, Lively says he is now hopeful after having reached out to city officials, the city’s codes department, as well as Mayor Dan Pope, all responded to him Monday morning that they would help him and neighbors with cleanup and working to resolve the issue.
“It’s a positive step,” said Lively. “We just want some help in getting it taken care of.”
When asked to give a statement on the trash buildup behind the apartment complex, management declined to comment.
