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Fly-tipping students have enraged locals by dumping mattresses, fridges and even bongs in alleyways as they head home in the summer.
Images show piles of rubbish and overflowing bins in the student cities of Manchester and Leeds, showing microwave ovens, party hats and broken fridges.
One photo shows a pile of toothbrushes, a broken birthday headband and a candle.
The weekend closest to July 1st is notorious for crowding, as it marks the time when most shared student house leases expire.
Because they often only spend a year in their properties, residents tend to throw out unwanted items before they leave.
Most students don’t have a car with them, so taking their belongings to local recycling centers can seem like too much of a hassle.
But OAPs living in Fallowfield, Manchester – where over 50 per cent of the population is students – said piles of rubbish had “ruined” the area and hit house prices.
One resident claimed the piles of rubbish had gotten so bad he couldn’t even drive his car into his garage.
He said the waste attracted rodents, which in turn were kept at bay by a pack of feral cats coming into the area.
Nino Guglielmi, 83, who has owned a local hairdressers in the neighborhood for 60 years, said the streets near his home had become a ‘dump’ every year.
Staring at the litter in one lane, just off Furness Road, he said: “Students have gone out this weekend and thrown all the rubbish all over the place. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
“They were throwing sofas, throwing sofas, throwing duvets, throwing laptops – you name it. They dropped everything and then left.
“It will destroy the neighborhood. Nobody here wants to buy properties when you want to sell them because they are full of garbage.
“Property prices have fallen. Nobody wants to live here anymore.
“It’s like a dump, Fallowfield.
Nino, who moved to the Manchester suburb from Italy in the 1960s, said he had tried to tackle the waste with other residents as the problem had worsened in recent years.
But he struggled with the heavy lifting after two heart attacks and said other longtime residents were now too frail to deal with the growing problem.
He said: “The area has deteriorated. It used to be bad, but now it’s absolutely ridiculously bad. Once we did some cleaning here, volunteered.
“We haven’t been doing it lately because some people have died and some are old. But the students do not do any cleaning. They just dump it on the floor and go.
And he felt the local authority was not doing enough to bring the students responsible for the problem to task.
He added: “The council doesn’t care. We have rats, mice here.
“And we dare not lay poison, for we have three or four wild cats.” Fortunately, they keep the rats and mice at bay.’
Elsewhere, Leeds Council has warned its city’s 50,000 students to ‘make a difference over the weekend’ of illegal dumping.
A spokesman for the local authority said: “The University of Leeds and its students are an important part of our community and make a significant contribution to our economy and culture.
“However, we recognize that in some areas where there is a high student population there may be problems with anti-social behaviour.
“We always work hard together with universities to encourage students to feel part of the local community and to show consideration for other residents.
“No one should have to tolerate anti-social behavior in their neighborhood and as every year we will do our best with our partners to tackle this during the transition period.
“We want to reassure residents that any issues will be resolved quickly.”
Manchester City Council has been contacted for comment.