A Grazettes Main Road, St Michael family is appealing to authorities to give them some relief from an alleged psychiatric patient who is creating an environmental nightmare in their community.
A visibly upset Joan Weekes told Barbados TODAY that for the past two years, the man has been taking discarded items from a nearby quarry and placing them in front of her house, creating obstacles and an eye sore.
Weekes said highlighting the situation in the media was a last resort since months of appealing to relevant authorities, including environmental health officers, police and the Psychiatric Hospital have proved futile.
She lamented that she could no longer handle the situation, which she said was not only an ugly sight, but has led to rodents invading her house, and the alleged psychiatric patient threatening to harm members of her family.
“I tired and fed up with this. Look at in front of my house. Not because my house old in front here should look so. Bare rats bout here. Everyday I have to be buying rat poison, because when I go down Black Rock they don’t have none.
“At nights, the rats running all bout here. So what can I do? I don’t know what to do. I call police, I call the health inspectors, I even put it on Facebook to see if the health inspectors will come. This has been going on too long. It ain’t like nobody ain’t know. I call everybody,” she said.
Weekes showed Barbados TODAY an entire living room suite, about five extra sofas, used pots and pans, mattress, galvanise sheets, and even food, all scattered in different areas in front of her house.
She complained that pieces of bottles broken by the same person resulted in her daughter having to replace at least two burst tyres.
“I called the policeman a morning he was breaking up bottles out here and the policeman asked me where I live and I told him where I live and he say ‘oh that mad boy again’. So them just thinking that he mad. He threatened my daughter and because of that my grandson don’t live here because he is scared of him. He tell me already that he gine kill me, he tell everybody bout here that he will kill them,” Weekes said.
The resident indicated that the environmental health officer attached to the area has visited and listened to her concerns about the garbage piled up in front of her home, and even took pictures on one occasion.
Barbados TODAY contacted the Environmental Health Department at the Branford Taitt Polyclinic, Black Rock, St Michael, where a senior health officer confirmed that the Department was aware of the environmental issues at Grazettes.