Geetha has a balcony in her house but she doesn’t sit there. Whenever children come to her house she strictly tells them not to enter the balcony. She has trees and plants around her house but never dares to spend time at the courtyard. Despite living in an independent house, she keeps her doors closed.
This resident of Rajeshwari Street at Metha Nagar says she reasons to behave in this manner. She says people relieve themselves on the compound wall opposite her house, and piles of overflowing garbage can be found near her house, attracting swarms of mosquitoes. She also alleges that “immoral activities are carried out inside private taxis parked in front of her house.” Geetha and her neighbour D. Krishnan say, “We can never use this portion of the platform as people mindlessly ease themselves on the wall and the place is always wet and nauseating. At times, we have even found stools on it.”
Even in broad daylight, obnoxious activities happen inside these cabs, they allege. There is a school in this street and children can be a witness to these things. It is worse at night as the street lights here don’t function, they say. Besides these things, there is the nuisance created by tipplers, they say.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Garbage bins are not placed in all the streets of Metha Nagar. So residents from other streets come and dump their garbage here. Besides, waste from the nearby food joints and the debris from construction sites are also dumped here,” they say.
A few residents believe things would have been different if the locality had had a residents’ welfare association.
D. Krishnan and another resident V. Ramaraj say, “There was a residents’ association in 1990s but for reasons unknown to us it became non-functional. At that time there were many independent houses. But now the street has an educational institution, commercial establishments and hostels.”
ADVERTISEMENT