Trash, mice in South Oakland present challenges for residents

When Katie Nagy and her roommates found a mouse residing in the kitchen of their South Oakland apartment last week, they felt struck by fear. Unsure how to proceed, the group armed themselves with pots and pans and reentered the kitchen yelling and causing a ruckus — an attempt to scare away the uninvited visitor. 

Nagy, a senior economics and political science major, said having a rodent roommate is common when residing in off-campus housing in South Oakland. 

“I think, regardless of how clean you are, living in an urban environment, especially one as gross as South Oakland, it’s inevitable,” Nagy said. “Most people won’t get infestations, but I think a lot of people have had a mouse roommate for a short period of time.”

According to student residents, the trash accumulating on South Oakland street’s has led to rats infesting some homes. Nagy said as students began moving into their South Oakland apartments in August, excessive amounts of trash accumulated on the streets, welcoming in the mice. The majority of the issue occurred on Chesterfield Road, according to WPXI, otherwise known as “rat street” as some have called it, but the issue extends beyond a single street. 

Nagy said her landlord did not do anything to address the problem, aside from sending a maintenance worker to “put out an extra trap.”

“They didn’t bother to find any of the cracks [the rats] may be coming in through or seal them off,” Nagy said.

Despite Nagy and her roommates upholding the cleanliness of their apartment, the mice kept eating their food, according to Nagy. She said the mice are “very inconvenient” and create challenges for her and her roommates. 

“We’ve had to repurchase food we didn’t get to eat and buy plastic bins to store all of our food,” according to Nagy. 

Stephen Pellegrino, an Oakland resident since 1971, said the current trash problem is “the worst he has ever seen.” Students continue to “pile up” garbage without facing consequences for their actions, according to Pellegrino.

“You call the city and it takes them forever to get around to doing anything, and nobody really gets fined,” Pellegrino said. “But the garbage situation is insane. If you walk along some of these places, there’ll be 15 or 20 garbage cans, for a two- or three-unit building.”

Pellegrino said South Oakland landlords and tenants take “no accountability” in terms of proper trash disposal, and said both parties should be held responsible.

“I’ve talked to my garbage man, I feel really bad,” Pellegrino said. “When it’s move-out time, these guys might sometimes make two or three trips back to the dump and work a 12-hour day. It’s ridiculous.” 

Nagy said the dumpsters behind her apartment are “overflowing” with trash.

“I honestly don’t even know when the last time they were emptied was,” Nagy said. 

The Oakland Planning and Development Corp. held an event titled “Let’s Talk: Trash” in Sept. 2022 in hopes of mitigating the South Oakland trash problem. At this meeting, residents shared similar complaints regarding high volumes of trash on the streets and inefficient trash collection. 

Pellegrino said many students do not know how to treat the property they reside in well. He said the problem appears to get worse each year, and added that if his mother ever saw him “treat a property like these kids do” she’d “have a heart attack.” 

“I can’t understand how much garbage is generated, especially now — everything’s in the mail, UPS, Amazon, box, box, box, box, and it gets worse every year,” Pellegrino said. “I get pretty mad about this because I have to deal with it all the time.”

Ilhaam Husain, a junior psychology major, said she felt “uneasy” when she and her roommates found mice in their South Oakland apartment.

“There were a good amount of [mice] and they came out of nowhere,” Husain said. “I know some got into my roommate’s room. It made it pretty hard for us to feel at ease in the kitchen where we primarily saw and caught them.” 

Pellegrino said Pitt should take some responsibility for the abundance of trash littering the streets and sidewalks.

“[Pitt] is the 500-pound gorilla in the room,” Pellegrino said. “If they took an interest in it, it would stop. It’s a well-oiled machine.”

On Aug. 25, Pitt’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs held an event where students could come and pick-up a free toter trash can. The event ran from noon to 5 p.m on Zulema Street.

University spokesperson Jared Stonesifer said Pitt empathizes with the frustration felt by Oakland residents when trash, litter and recycling materials build up, but added that Pitt has “provided direct support for years” to alleviate the trash and litter concerns. He said Pitt continues to grow investments in staff time, volunteer support, funding and concrete resources to address this issue. 

“The University contracted eight supplemental trash pickups throughout Central and South Oakland to provide additional support to households that generate high volumes of waste during peak move-in and move-out periods,” Stonesifer said. 

According to Stonesifer, 83 Panther Connect students held their own cleanup throughout Oakland, contributing almost 200 hours of volunteer trash cleanup activities this summer. Stonesifer also said there are new programs being initiated through Pitt’s brand new Off-Campus Living Office to educate and engage students in being proactive about trash and waste reduction. 

“The Off-Campus Living Office also has plans to communicate with landlords to ensure students have the proper tools and are set up for success.”

Pellegrino said his neighbors agree that the trash poses challenges for longtime residents. He said they “all stick together” and “go scream at the city” about these issues when it’s needed.  

“If you walk up and down the streets in Oakland, you’ll see everybody has their garbage out,” Pellegrino said. “There’s no lids, and it’s amazing the things you’ll see that people throw out. You start throwing half-eaten food out, you might as well say come on in.”