A young Edinburgh mum has hit out at the council after a broken lock on her communal bin store has led to foxes and 'vermin' entering and tearing dozens of bin bags open.
Tyree Bowen, 25, claims that for the whole five years she has been living in Pennywell Gardens, one of the entrances to the building's communal bin store, located on the exterior of the block of flats, has been faulty.
Adding to the issue, Tyree says there is another entrance to the bins within the buildings itself, which she says is a 'design fault' and has led to the smell of rotten food and waste filling the whole stair.
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As well as the broken lock, Tyree says fellow neighbours make the issue worse by 'lazily' chucking their own rubbish on top of the mess without taking responsibility and clubbing together to clean it up.
After contacting Edinburgh Live, Tyree shared multiple images of the mess left behind as a result of wildlife and says the council bin men do nothing to help. As a result, she does not let her five-year-old daughter Harlie anywhere near the bin store and says her mental health is being impacted by the lack of cleanliness and the foul smell.
"It is a complete design fault, I don't know who came up with that," said Tyree.
"It also makes people pretty lazy when throwing their rubbish away as they just chuck it in there with no care. That's how a lot of this has happened with the mess. The door onto the street is constantly broken so foxes are getting in and ripping all the bags. There is obviously mice and rats too.
"It is just very unhygienic and I'm really concerned to be honest. The council just say they will get someone round to clean it up, which has happened a few times but then it falls back into the same state.
"If there was a better system for it then it would be avoided altogether. I've been here for five years and the door is always getting broken. As you can get into it from the street people are probably just using it as a dumping ground."
Tyree says the majority of neighbours are angry about the constant mess and smell of rotten food, with one neighbour reportedly complaining to their housing officer who was due to visit the building but 'never showed'.
Tyree has also raised concern for her five-year-old daughter Harlie and says she doesn't want her going 'anywhere near' the bins.
She continued: "I just don't want her going in there. I go in myself but it gets trailed on the stairs so whenever we're coming down there is often food lying on the steps and in the hall.
"Sometimes it will lie them for for weeks. The cleaners will come out and just sweep mouldy food to the corner and leave it. The smell is disgusting, it really is horrible and it's actually depressing having to come home and look at this mess all the time.
"I have quite bad OCD so when it comes to cleanliness and germs I'm generally really tidy so you can imagine how this is impacting my mental health. As the bins aren't getting emptied regularly even I have no choice but to put my bin bags on top of it all.
"It's just like going around in circles. My friend told me she saw a mice in there, I haven't seen any personally but they're definitely in there as it's the perfect spot for them."
A council spokesperson said: “We are very sorry to hear about this and are investigating the matter as a priority. Alongside addressing the non-collections of waste, we will also deal with the illegal fly-tipping of bulky items that is occurring at this location.”
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