{"id":25673,"date":"2025-04-16T20:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T20:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/25673\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T20:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T20:36:17","slug":"birmingham-locals-fume-over-diabolical-health-hazard-thats-making-kids-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/25673\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham locals fume over ‘diabolical health hazard’ that’s ‘making kids sick’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fed-up Birmingham locals have demanded the council act straight away to end the rubbish crisis that has left locals fearing for their health as huge rats scurry among the debris<\/p>\n

22:15, 15 Apr 2025Updated 14:43, 16 Apr 2025<\/p>\n

Dirty nappies, mouldy onions, half-eaten kebab meat on the road\u2026 these sickening sights greet residents blighted by the Birmingham<\/a> bin strikes daily.<\/p>\n

And fed-up locals have demanded the council act now to end the crisis that has left locals fearing for their health as huge rats scurry among the debris. And it\u2019s not just humans who are suffering. One woman told how she found a dead cat, feared to have been killed by poison laid to tackle the ravaging rodents.<\/p>\n

Talks between council leaders and unions resume today amid concerns the strikes<\/a> over job cuts, which started on March 11, could spread to other cities. But residents lined up to share their hell of living among the filth.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Book a last-minute Easter staycation with 30% off ‘lavish’ and dog-friendly hotels<\/a>\"Birmingham\"A long-running strike by bin workers has left rubbish piling up on Birmingham’s streets(Image: Joseph Walshe \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

Housing maintenance boss Jonathan Ward, checking on \u00adproperties in Sparkbrook, said: \u201cI\u2019ve seen rats as big as cats, they\u2019re getting in houses and cars. The people in our properties are \u00adactually getting cats to kill the rats it\u2019s making things worse for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not animals but we\u2019re living like animals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is people\u2019s health. It\u2019s a danger to life to be living like this. We\u2019re no better than if we were living down that drain. We\u2019re \u00adtripping over rubbish, reversing over the rubbish.<\/p>\n

\"JonathanLocal Jonathan Ward speaks to the Mirror’s Sanjeeta Bains(Image: Phil Harris)<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the dispute is resolved the backlog of garbage that will need to be collected will take forever. You wouldn\u2019t believe this is happening in the UK. My road is \u00adscuttling with rats. We\u2019re fighting a losing battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council claimed it will be cleaning the rubbish away by the weekend. But Jonathan added: \u201cWhy the hell can\u2019t they do it now? If this isn\u2019t an emergency I don\u2019t know what is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mohammed Ali, 18, lives in Balsall Heath Park, normally a green sanctuary within inner-city Birmingham. \u00adChildren play on nearby swings near the mounds of rubbish and pigeons swoop down to pick at the at the mouldy contents of ripped open black bin bags strewn across the streets.<\/p>\n

\"rubbish\"Thousands of tonnes of rubbish has gone uncollected(Image: Joseph Walshe \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

Mohammed said: \u201cIt is diabolical. It\u2019s a health hazard and it\u2019s got way out of hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need the council to act now. We can\u2019t live with this any more we need action fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Munar Moha-mmed, 40, shopping with his family in \u00adSparkbrook, added: \u201cMy bins haven\u2019t been collected in four weeks and it\u2019s hard to get a slot at the tip. It\u2019s making my kids sick. They still collect council tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rat\"A giant rat runs towards rubbish bags in Birmingham(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

Chair of Friends of Spark Green Park, in Sparkbrook, Sadia Khan, told how she found the dead cat during a litter pick.<\/p>\n

Sadia added: \u201cIt was a healthy adult size with no signs of any injury to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took it to the vet who couldn\u2019t confirm it died from poisoning but it\u2019s a suspicion that we have. I\u2019ve seen on Facebook<\/a>, people have lost their cats and it\u2019s a real fear that they\u2019re getting poisoned. We\u2019re trying to control this rodent infestation and it\u2019s disgusting.<\/p>\n

\"health\"Warnings have been issued over a public health emergency(Image: Joseph Walshe \/ SWNS)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is worse in these very inner city areas because they are overpopulated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a Muslim \u00adcommunity and it was heartbreaking at Eid, when we mark the end of Ramadan with food, there are \u00adleftovers, but no bins collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re living in rubbish. We feel anxious to go and enjoy parks and public places. It\u2019s distressing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Unite\"Unite said its members voted overwhelmingly against the council’s “totally inadequate” pay offer(Image: PA)<\/p>\n

James Ikenna, 48, said: \u201cI\u2019m from Nigeria originally and this has made the news in my home country. My friend called me and said, \u2018Is this where you are living, James, in Birmingham? Where there is all the rubbish?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s embarrassing. It\u2019s shocking that this is happening in Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it shows how vital our binmen are. They deserve more respect than they get.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JamesJames Ikenna talks to the Daily Mirror’s Sanjeeta Bains about the Bin strike in Birmingham(Image: Sanjeeta Bains )<\/p>\n

Musician Darren Adderley, 55 lives with his 15-year-old daughter Isabella in Balsall Heath. He said: \u201cThe problem that we\u2019ve got in this area is we have a lot of small houses and a lot of small rows, so the rubbish really builds up. Also, at night, people are dumping rubbish.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I\u2019m with the bin men though. This is to do with central government, not just Birmingham city council.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are picking on the bin workers because if they break the bin workers\u2019 union Unite which is very strong, they can start breaking up everybody else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DarrenLocal Darren Adderley said the piles of rubbish have got bigger every single day(Image: Phil Harris)<\/p>\n

Surveying a mountain of bin bags opposite his home, he added: \u201cEvery morning that has got bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fazia Tahir, who lives nearby, added: \u201cI can\u2019t open the door to my back garden because of the \u00admountains of rubbish. It\u2019s like being in a third world<\/a> country. The smell every time I go outside makes me vomit.<\/p>\n

\"Rubbish\"Birmingham residents have threatened to leave the city for good over the rubbish piles(Image: Phil Harris)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bags have been ripped open by cats and rats. The vermin issue is making me sick. I\u2019ve called Birmingham city council, but they do nothing. They don\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could move out of Birmingham. It\u2019s absolutely filthy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fed-up Birmingham locals have demanded the council act straight away to end the rubbish crisis that has left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[933,855,748,932,393,4884,15670,15669,16,11660,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-25673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-council-tax","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-job-losses","15":"tag-jonathan-ward","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-unite","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114349565048841650","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}