Residents say if they ring council to complain they get pushed from pillar to post and speak to four or five different departments. Photo / Supplied
By RNZ
A group of Christchurch residents are crying out for help dealing with a crappy situation plaguing their neighbourhood.
Families living on Dudley St say thousands of birds nesting in trees above their homes are covering their properties in poo, prompting concerns of a public health hazard.
Becca Hughes lives there with her husband and two children, and says they're trying everything they can to keep the place clean, but to no avail.
"It's right up our driveway, across our cars all over our windows and it's now this year it started on the back deck as well.
"We can clean the cars over the weekend like most people do and by Wednesday or Thursday they look like abandoned vehicles, and I've actually had that comment, taken one of the cars in to get valeted because we were selling it and we were asked how long it had been sitting and it had been maybe a week since it had been cleaned, but they honestly thought it was an abandoned vehicle because of the amount of bird droppings.
"Friends will come and park for one evening and the next day they'll come and collect their car and it's just covered in bird droppings."
The family has to dash from the house to their cars to avoid the droppings.
"We've got a young family, as I say, we've got a 1-year-old and a 2-and-a-half-year-old and if we go out for a walk with the dog we cover them in the pram and we dash to the end of the street.
"As the trees stop, the problem stops. It's no longer an issue."
In addition, the smell is horrible.
"You roll your windows up as you drive up the entrance to our driveway. It's not nice."
They prayed for rain every week to wash the poo from the street, she said.
Hughes wanted – to start with – a response from the council.
"We've submitted (to them). We've emailed them directly. We've been to community board meetings. We've had a community board member at the house and they've just said it's not their responsibility and now they refuse to come back to us.
"If we ring we get pushed pillar to post and we speak to four or five different departments. The trees are their problem - and they recognise that - and therefore the birds roosting there are their problem, so cleaning the street would be a start.
"A long-term risk management plan or an understanding of is it actually a health hazard? We don't know - and is it endangering our children and or is it just a hygiene, cleanliness thing?
"Honestly, we're in the dark and they are not helping."
She was not suggesting the trees be cut down – in fact, she would be disappointed if that happened.
"It's just through 10 years of neglect post earthquakes. They haven't been maintained and they haven't been managed and they've become so dense that the starlings can continue to come home to roost and grow and grow and grow in number."
- RNZ
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