A mountain of rubbish bags was left uncollected from a block of flats for nearly three months.
Abi Spree described the bin room at her home at Spring Acres estate in Bapchild as “disgusting” as the black sacks had not been collected since the start of June.
Hyde Housing, which runs the block, apologised to the residents and removed the rubbish on August 20, after KentOnline had got in touch.
But by this point, the rubbish had been festering in the summer heatwaves and had amassed hundreds of fruit flies and maggots. There were also reports of rats.
It had built up so much, Abi claims it took workers five trips and two and a half hours to clear.
Speaking before the rubbish was cleared, she said: “It’s absolutely disgusting. I don’t know any other word to use.
“In the morning, it’s always humid in our house and we open the windows.
“The minute I do that, I’m constantly getting loads of fruit flies. It’s all coming from the bin shed, I know this because my neighbour below has the exact same issue.
“It should be emptied on a weekly basis. They [the bin men] do turn up.
“The lorry will pull in and they’ll just drive off again. We’re doing what we’re meant to be doing, but they’re not doing their half.
“I’m now having to throw my bags up towards the roof of it to be able to get it into the bin shed.
“As soon as you see the black sack hit all the others, you’ve probably got around 300 flies that come off of it.
“The amount of maggots and flies is just disgusting. I can’t even tell you what it smells like. It’s like I might as well have the bin shed in my house.”
She has lived at the block, which has 16 flats, for two years with her partner and their three children: a two-year-old daughter and one-year-old twins.
“You might have three, four, or five people in one household,” Abi said.
“I’m a family of five – I’ve got three children and get through so many nappies on a weekly basis.
“I’m just angry. More so because this estate is lovely, but they need to keep on top of this.
“It’s making me not want to invite people over because of the number of flies in our house.”
A spokeswoman for Hyde added: “We’d like to apologise to our customers at Spring Acres for the issues with the bin store.
“We know how frustrating this can be. Unfortunately, some bin collections were missed, but we’ll be clearing the bin stores today and removing the household waste that’s outside.
“We’ll continue to monitor the situation closely and work with the council to prevent this from happening again.”
Suez Recycling & Recovery has been the contractor for the area’s waste service since March last year and serves around 460,000 residents across Swale, Maidstone and Ashford.
A spokesman for Swale council said: “We’ve been in contact with Hyde Housing about access to the communal bins, which have been obstructed by bulky items like furniture and bags of waste placed around the bins.
“Once this has been cleared, our crews will be able to resume collections.”
