Illegal dumping: Detroit cleans up massive pile of trash across from school bus stop

‘It’s just been really disrespectful to neighbors’

DETROIT – A massive pile of trash on Detroit’s east side has been cleaned up after Help Me Hank investigated.

The dangerous mess was on Lumpkin Street and right across the street from a school bus stop. A frustrated resident reached out to Local 4.

“Every day I gotta look at this mess outside of my window,” resident Anthony Smith said. “And it’s just been really disrespectful to neighbors. All complain. At night we see rodents, all kinds of animals, you know, fishing through that debris over there.



Smith was tired of the mess and worried about the kids in the neighborhood. He said he called the city, police and has done everything he could to get the mess cleaned up.

He said it had been there for about three months. The Help Me Hank team got in touch with the city right away and within hours the city was there to clean it up.

“Anything over 5-cubic-yards is pretty much a concern. You know, the tickets escalate from a couple hundred dollars to a thousand dollars. Which is what this ticket would be,” Raymond Scott with the City of Detroit said.

The mess is now cleaned up and city leaders want people to know that illegal dumping will not be tolerated.


Have a news tip? To reach Help Me Hank, call 313-634-WDIV (313-634-9348) or email at helpmehank@wdiv.com.


Read: Complete Help Me Hank coverage


About the Authors

Hank Winchester is Local 4’s Consumer Investigative Reporter and the head of WDIV’s “Help Me Hank” Consumer Unit. Hank works to solve consumer complaints, reveal important recalls and track down thieves who have ripped off people in our community.

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.

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