What a scat-tastophy.
The Big Apple has gone from winter wonderland to poop-filled purgatory in the weeks since last month’s one-foot blanketing of snow — forcing New Yorkers to tip-toe through nasty minefields of unscooped dog doo left behind by owners who careless fail to pick up after their pets.
The situation has gone so far down the crapper that frustrated city residents have made 245 “dog waste” complaints to the city’s 311 service — calls that have apparently had little effect as much of the left over snow around town remains a gross brown mess, several city residents said.
“This dog poop pile-up is driving me crazy, and I have a dog, so I feel like this is just completely unnecessary,” 37-year-old Bushwick resident Mia Peterson told The Post outside a trail of snow-embedded dog waste in the hipster neighborhood.
“This is the worst I’ve seen dog poop piles – it’s a lot,” fumed Mads Gordon, a 23-year-old Bushwick resident.
“I guess because folks don’t want to, like, get their hands cold,” Gordon added. “Dogs still have to s—t, and owners just don’t want to pick it up.”
The nearly 250 poop complaints made to 311 since the massive Jan. 25’s snowfall is an 8% increase from the 227 related reports made during the same time period last year. But residents say the problem feels like a 100% increase in the amount of discarded dog dung due to how noticeable it is against snowy sidewalks.
“It looks very visible and disgusting,” noted 26-year-old Bushwick resident Josie B.
“I would say it’s definitely more noticeable because of the snow. I think it’s ramped up in the past couple of months due to that.”
“I don’t think people do a good job of picking up after their dogs,” said East Harlem local Leslie Wright. “I’m passing through, and there’s a lot. Somebody stepped on it, which I just witnessed a few minutes ago.”
Wright said she isn’t concerned that the vile stench around East 104th Street will get worse when the snow melts because “it’s already frozen … but it’s not a nice sight to look at.”
The most dog waste complaints made since Winter Storm Fern are concentrated around Manhattan’s Community Board 12 (representing Washington Heights and Inwood) with over 34 calls made to the city over unsightly piles.
Brooklyn’s Community Board 7 (including Sunset Park and South Park Slope) followed with 27 complaints in two weeks.
More than 130 – or 57% — of dog waste complaints made since Jan. 25 were closed after the sanitation department found “no violation” or evidence of waste at the location. Another 42% of complaints, some of which date back to Jan. 27, are currently pending responses from the agency.
City sanitation department reps told The Post it hasn’t issued a single violation since the winter storm walloped the city with roughly a foot of snow — but it’s still no excuse for leaving excrement on city streets, nor does it become the city’s responsibility to clean up.
“Absolutely it is the dog owner’s responsibility to pick up dog waste, regardless of the weather or conditions on the ground,” a DSNY rep said. “It is irresponsible and just gross to leave this behind anywhere, whether it’s a sidewalk, a patch of grass or a snow pile.”
Some residents have resorted to shaming their neighbors online for the disgusting doo doo ditching.
“The snow is already making it hard to cross the streets,” one Reddit user griped about the “poop on the sidewalks for some time now” in Ridgewood, Queens.
“People are already playing a maze game trying to walk around ice and snow, — s— too, though?”
The already-embattled DSNY enforces the so-called Pooper Scooper Law by investigating locations where dog walkers routinely don’t pick up after the pets. The maximum fine for unscooped waste is $250, according to the city’s website.
“On a good day, it is difficult to issue a summons for this, as our enforcement team would have to catch the dog owner in the act of leaving it behind,” a DSNY rep said, adding that, since Jan. 25, “our entire workforce has been focused on snow removal.
“We understand this to be an important quality-of-life issue for all New Yorkers,” the rep added.
The department said it has focused on patrolling areas with the “highest complaints,” and is currently exploring the use of mobile cameras to “increase enforcement against these careless residents.”
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