Newsome pensioner slams ‘rubbish’ bin collection service

Jun 20 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A PENSIONER is threatening to stop paying council tax – if the dustmen don’t take away piles of rubbish from outside her flat.

Constance Haigh, 88, says maggots are crawling around in the waste outside her block of Newsome flats and the bin men refuse to take it away.

The pensioner says it’s a health hazard.

Mrs Haigh lives in a block of flats on Edale Avenue and the residents put their rubbish in a communal area outside.

She told the Examiner someone in the block of flats had died and their rubbish had been cleared out and binned.

Yet it was left in the bins to rot, and had become wedged at the bottom of the bins to fester.

She told the Examiner: “The bin hasn’t been collected for three or four weeks now. I’m hoping they’re going to get someone to move it.

“I’m paying my council tax. I’m paying their wages.

“I’ve told them if it isn’t emptied I’m going to stop my rent and they can put me in prison.

“They’re getting three weeks of rent in advance from me at the moment.”

Mrs Haigh said all the worry is affecting her health.

She also said she can’t get to sleep at night.

The mother-of-two said: “I’ve been up since four o’clock in the morning and I’m panicking and I nearly sent for an ambulance – it makes me poorly.

“All the neighbours think it’s disgusting.