Everyone deserves a safe, clean, and healthy environment to live in; especially when you have to pay for it.

The Problem:

The residential community of Cove Village in Essex Maryland has been plagued with an infestation of rats due to the dumping of trash on community grounds because of the lack of proper outdoor disposal containers.  This infestation has posed not only a safety and health risk to the residents of the community but has also caused damage to the community grounds and personal property of the residents and has made the community aesthetically unappealing.

The Cove Village property does not provide trash receptacles for the community to store trash. They also do not require the residents to maintain their own outdoor trash receptacles and there are no posted or designated times that trash should be set out in order for trash to be picked up the following day. Because of this, trash is set out at all times of the day and night, many times without appropriate containment; causing trash to be strewn about the community and it is left there for days until whenever it is time for the trash to be picked up.

According to the Baltimore Livability Code, it is the duty of both the tenant AND the property owner to do their part to maintain sanitary conditions of the community.

Section 35-5-206 states that it is the duty of the tenant to “store and dispose of rubbish and garbage in a clean and sanitary manner as required by law.”

HOWEVER...

Section 35-5-208 states that “The property owner shall maintain the exterior of a structure in good repair and in sanitary condition so that the structure does not pose a threat to the health, safety, or welfare of the occupants.”

AND...

Section 13-7-310 states that “dumping is prohibited. A person may not place, leave, dump, or allow to accumulate any garbage, rubbish, trash, or manure in an improved or vacant building or premises, or any open lot or alley so that the garbage, rubbish, trash, or manure may become food for rats or a rat harborage.”

So how can the residents of Cove Village uphold their tenant responsibilities and do their part to maintain sanitary conditions if they are not provided the tools and regulations needed to be upheld by property management in order to do so.

THE SOLUTION:

In order to begin to eliminate the rat infestation and create a healthy and beautiful environment, the following solution is proposed:

The Cove village Community should be provided with County Garbage Dumpsters ; either one for each lot of the community or one for every two lots of the community for the purposes of providing adequate accessibility and promoting clean grounds.

It is understandable that this solution can not happen overnight or maybe not be able to happen at all so in the interim or in the event that large dumpsters are not the ideal solution, the following secondary solution is proposed:

1. Provide and RE-ENFORCE notification of the days designated for trash pickup to all residents of the Cove Village Community.

2. REQUIRE and RE-ENFORCE that trash only be set out the NIGHT before the designated trash pickup day.

3 In the event that trash accumulates inside of the home of any resident and needs to be taken out prior to the designated night of set out ; it should be REQUIRED and RE-ENFORCED that all trash should be placed in a personal, secure trash receptacle; which should be provided by the tenant or property management, and the receptacle should be kept near the home until it is time for the trash to be set out.

4. All personal trash receptacles should be marked to show ownership in order to eliminate any theft that may occur. Theft of any personal receptacle should not be placed as a responsibility of the property manager unless the receptacle was provided by management in which case a replacement should be given in a timely manner.

5.Any changes and/or notifications as it pertains to trash pick up/set out times and dates should be provided to tenants in a timely manner in order to maintain order and give tenants enough time to prepare for the change.