Staff disgusted by dumping at diner
Staff at a New Plymouth diner thought nothing of the elderly couple parked up outside in their converted motorhome – until they got wind of what they had left behind.
For the pair – a lovely couple in their seventies, according to Deluxe Diner owner Chere Bailey – had dumped at least a bucket’s worth of human excrement at the side of the building instead of taking it for proper disposal.
Bailey was disgusted by the pair’s actions.
‘‘I thought they seemed like mature and responsible people,’’ she said. ‘‘There is no excuse, no excuse at all for that.’’
Employee Claudia Wheeler said she saw the couple draining something from the large purple and grey bus during their 45-minute stopover on Sunday afternoon.
‘‘I had seen water coming out of the van, and at that point it didn’t smell,’’ she said.
Walking back into the diner, that’s when the putrid smell hit and she realised what the couple had done.
Diner staff began a cleanup, but when their hose didn’t reach they had to resort to using buckets of water to wash the
human waste away.
But the smell still lingered, causing customers to move seats to get away from it.
‘‘It was awful, the smell just stayed there for the rest of the shift. It was not nice at all,’’ Wheeler said yesterday, with the smell and the waste now removed from the site.
‘‘I was really upset.
‘‘I felt so sorry for the customers,’’ she said.
‘‘They were trying to eat with that awful smell.
‘‘No-one got up and left but they were definitely mortified, you could tell by their faces.’’
There are 19 public dump stations in Taranaki and Wheeler and Bailey said there was no excuse for the couple to leave human waste in a public area.
‘‘I’m all about freedom camping,’’ said Bailey. ‘‘I’ve done it myself, but I guess there are some not well-behaved people out there trying to camp for free and not taking responsibility for any living costs.’’