In the summer heat and humidity, the smell of trash can really get bad in the city and especially in the densely populated North End. Residents often see these trails of “gunk” in the middle of the street. Mark B. shares this photo from Salem Street and cites the commercial pickup truck companies as a big part of the problem.
“Welcome to Boston’s Little Italy” where commercial garbage collection trucks have joined in the vomiting fun, leaving several piles of this all the way down Salem St. multiple times in the last couple of weeks.
Seriously – How do we stop this? The whole street smells like a garbage dump all the time now. You can’t walk down the street at any time of day or day of the week, without getting assaulted by this horrible, horrible smell at several spots.
In a follow-up, he tells us that these vomit-like trails are not from Capitol, the company that picks up the residential trash for the City. Instead, he has seen them left by JRM which does a lot of the commercial hauling in the overnight hours.
I think it is time for the North End Chamber of Commerce and/or the Salem St businesses to step up to the plate and do something about this mess. Pay for steam cleaning/power washing the street and go after commerical hauler to stop being such pigs. Gross!
I’ve lived on Salem St for over 7 years now and never seen this before. Let’s not go overboard if this is a one-time occurrence
These “messes” often result from commercial dumpsters filling up with rainwater. Every time a dumpster is dumped, the rainwater ends up accumulating inside of the body. These trucks are designed as best they can be, there is no way to stop this problem 100%.
Whatever the cause, it requires a remedy, these trucks and operators have no accountability for their actions. The trucks stream through the area early in the A.M., their only aim is to get in and out as quickly as possible, caring little for the noise and messes (coincidentally, messes they are hired to remove) they leave behind.
I walk down Salem Street every day and I have called the city hotline several times on my way to work about this issue. The pools of waste liquids leak from the garbage trucks from Cross to Prince Street. The smell is disgusting and the liquid is also gross.
The smell is more pronounced because of the warm weather and heat, but is certainly an issue that happens all year long.
It is nice, however to see several Salem St. businesses regularly wash and hose down the side walks and streets in front of their establishments, regrettably not all do. But this issue should be addressed.
It says a lot about the business when they hose it down. I do not scrutinize those who don’t, especially old businesses since they were all horse and buggy once. But it is a good thing to do, and in the big picture, it is good for business. More and more places in New York do this anymore. And New York side walks aren’t as grimy as they used to be — so its citizenry too. I think this is very Guiliani – Bloomberg type stuff.
I know another area that reeks the same way~~~Smells mostly in the Summer !!
You should see the mess left on a daily basis from Partner’s Health on Fulton St. Medical and human waste and likely rotten food on the street every day. They often splash the cars parked next to it as well. Its revolting.
I would think all businesses in the neighborhood should be required to hose down their sidewalk and also help with the litter in their street – whether it comes from their establishment or not. It would also be nice if some if these store/restaurants would host/take care of/maintain public trash cans on their block. They could even billboard on their trashcans their establishment. The trashcans are over flowing especially during these popular tourist months – it would be good I these restaurants/stores would take some ownership in that.