Piles of maggot-infested trash piled up outside a new student block after rubbish wasn’t collected for several weeks.
The first students moved into Hillfort House last month after it was built on the site of a former waste transfer site.
But although the block’s management, Student Roost, had made an arrangement with Brighton and Hove City Council, Cityclean workers didn’t empty the bins.
After raising complaints, Student Roost agreed to get its staff to put the bins outside the bin store the evening before collection is due, and the first collection happened on Thursday.
Neighbour Lynn said: “It was sadly predictable when the Student Roost was built that this would become an issue.
“Despite bins being provided, lots of rubbish bags get dumped, full of uneaten rotten food.
“My friends and I removed some of the food (my mother lives across from there) as it was crawling with maggots.”
She called on Student Roost to do more to educate students not to leave poorly bagged rubbish by overflowing bins.
A spokesperson for Student Roost said: “We are aware that there has been an issue with rubbish at Hillfort House recently, and we are saddened that this has impacted on the local community.
“A previous issue with regular weekly bin collections has now been resolved, and we are confident this will not happen again going forward.
“All residents are provided with four bins in their kitchen, to enable them to dispose of and recycle glass, cardboard, plastic, food, and household waste in the correct, environmentally friendly way.
“We issue a recycling guide to all residents upon check in, have sent regular communications on the proper waste disposal process, and also hosted building facility demonstrations with residents to ensure rubbish and recycling is being disposed of in the right bins.”
As well as the general waste collections, a private company also collects food waste weekly from Hillfort House.
A council spokesperson said: “The initial problems collecting from this location have now been resolved. A collection was made today and regular collections will follow.”
We need an election and Labour will make students pay for this. Mainly rich kids from privileged backgrounds. They should pay for this mess not locals struggling on universal credit
They don’t get their bins collected for weeks, and yet it’s their fault? Did you not see what happened to the whole city when there was a bin strike for just a couple of weeks? Bit of logic, please.
Cityclean have to have the laziest binmen going. And be the most disorganised company. I’ve never known anywhere miss collections so often, or have such a massive issue with actually entirely emptying bins, or putting them back.