Aug 27, 2015

Neighbours of a soon-to-be-demolished apartment building in South Vancouver are crying foul over an illegal garbage dump that’s sprung up on the property. The building at 7350 Fraser Street is abandoned, but a pile of debris outside it is growing. Nearby residents say the garage, which includes many dirty mattresses and bags of trash, is attracting vermin and can be smelled from a block away. South Vancouver residents are asking the city to stop people from using an abandoned property to drop trash. (CTV) "[There’s] broken glass, there's foul smell… very toxic,” said neighbour Susan Leong. Leong complained to the city about the mess. She says while some trash has always been around the property, it’s recently escalated into a full-blown disaster now that the building is unoccupied. “People are taking advantage of the situation, dumping more and more garbage around the actual bin here,” she said. Some neighbours say they’ve even had confrontation with the dumpers, when they’ve tried to stop them from leaving their trash. “It’s actually terrible. It attracts a lot of bad people,” said Henry Klassen. “The other day my wife was staring down some guys that were dumping here and they actually told her to F off.” The City of Vancouver has ordered the property owner to remove the garbage by Sept. 2, or else they’ll do it themselves and send them a bill for the work and disposal. This isn’t the only problem property the city has been dealing with. Earlier this month, inspectors ordered the owner of a filthy East Vancouver property to clean up after the yard and alley became a haven for illegal dumpers. In that case, the property owners removed the debris before the city imposed deadline. It’s become a serious problem for many other Metro Vancouver communities as well. In Langley, township staff cleaned up an average of two dump sites a day last year, and some municipalities have resorted to surveillance cameras to try to catch people in the act. In Delta, a resident posted a video after catching what appears to be blatant dumping in the act on the edge of her property three weeks ago.

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