STINKING PROBLEM
Residents rubbish bin lorry failure
Residents in a block of modern maisonettes had their lives transformed when refuse trucks failed to turn up for their normal collections.
For almost a month in February 1973, furious tenants at Calside looked on in horror as their general household rubbish began to overflow in the bin area.
Refuse chutes became blocked and their normally spotless stairs and closes turned into a squalid mess of smelly litter.
Dogs began to roam the quiet flats at night, attracted by the mountains of bags gathering in every available nook and cranny.
And, after weeks of fruitless complaining to the Cleansing and Sanitary Departments, the householders were living in fear of germs and rats.
Yet there still wasn’t a Paisley refuse truck in sight – and the prospect of ever seeing one again was starting to concern every single resident.
“The block has been turned into a disgusting mess,” said Mrs May Leckie.
“It is almost a month since the bins were emptied and the area is now more reminiscent of a slum than the pleasant block of flats it usually is.”
Her neighbour, Mrs Mary Reilly, whose door was right next to the blocked rubbish chute, admitted there was an appalling smell wafting into her house.
She said: “There is a terrible stench coming from the rubbish, which is piling up on an unbearable level.
“The Cleansing Department really will have to do something about this – and soon.”
When a reporter from the Paisley Daily Express visited the flats, an elderly lady who used a walking stick to get around, was trying in vain to brush an assortment of rubbish from her landing.
She said: “I just couldn’t sit back and watch the rubbish gathering outside my door.
“When I opened the door this morning to bring in my milk, there was rubbish on my doorstep that had blown out of the refuse sacks.
“I had to try and clear it up.” One mum of two young kids was worried about the risk of germs.
She said: “It has reached the stage where I’m afraid to take my baby out.
“I have complained on numerous occasions, as have others, but no action has been taken.
“The piles of rubbish are so bad, and the smell is getting so much worse, that no one will want to visit this block again.”
Robert Adam, Paisley’s Director of Cleansing, said: “We had a breakdown with a bulk container truck, which collects refuse from these flats, but the fault has been rectified and it will visit the flats today.”