Many New Orleans residents continue to wait for routine trash pickups and they think it stinks.
"It smell like dead bodies," said New Orleans East Resident, Anika Bethley.
The unremarkable stench continues to fill the air in New Orleans.
"We've gone over a month, my tenants, with them paying their bill without trash getting picked up," said Anthony Marullo.
Marullo owns Bundy townhomes where Bethley lives. On Saturday the two, along with more than 20 tenants, including children, took care of the trash issue themselves.
“It's a serious situation. We have soiled diapers on the street, we have products that I don't even want to mention on the street, we have maggots, we have roaches, Marullo said.
Now the city is on the verge of a public health crisis.
“If you study your history, when the Roman empire started to fall the first thing that people noticed was the trash wasn't getting picked up,” said Cajun Navy Vice President, Brian Trascher.
“New Orleans, to me I grew up here, this is my Roman empire. This is my city I love it and it really hurts my heart to see it in this condition," he said.
With the help of IV's Sidney Torres, the Cajun Navy, and former city councilman and host of the Good Morning show, Oliver Thomas, dumpsters were donated and the trash was taken out.
"If the city can't do it, let's come out and do it ourselves," Thomas said.
The pandemic-induced labor shortage has caused a delay in routine trash pickups and hurricane Ida only made things worse. Now the men and women who haul are trash have more work on their hands but not more pay.
“If we ever, ever appreciated them we need to do it now. We need to pay them, we need to respect them and we need to support them," Thomas said.
But until then...as always...the east is taking care of the east...
The dumpsters in the Bundy townhomes are for the residents. But, across the street will be these red dumpsters for everyone in the community to use.
"We're going to keep the dumpsters here as long as we need to keep them here to help be a service to New Orleans East,” Marullo said.
As the Bundy townhome residents roll up their sleeves and get to work, they tell WWLTV that they hope the City does the same.
"Wake up! Because residents, they've had enough,” Marullo said.
“This is a city problem they need to come out and take care of us like we pay our bills on time, they need to come out and pick this up," Bethley.
Those red dumpsters for New Orleans East residents to use will be across from the Bundy townhomes at 6780 Bundy road. Once filled IV waste will dump the trash in a nearby landfill.