Residents in Brighton Beach say there has been progress made cleaning up an illegal dumping ground located in front of an abandoned home, but more work needs to be done, including having the building condemned.

The building is located at 3026 Brighton 6th St.

Sanitation workers from the city packed nearly 20 bags worth of trash and placed them near the home - but residents say the trash heap has created issues including smell, rats, and rat poison that is used to combat them, saying its a blight on a street where children frequently play.

""I'm afraid - and my kids don't come here anymore - I don't allow them to come here because I am afraid of [the rats] ," said Tanya, a neighboring property owner.

Michael Rosati, who lives right next-door to the heap, says the smell is unbearable and what the city has done falls far short of a solution.

"People have tried to remedy the situation on their own, and they put rat poison, and you can smell the poison, especially in the heat, and it wafts through the entire building," Rosati said. "There were bags already on top of this pile and it looks like they just reached over the fence, grabbed what they could and pushed some of it but they did not go in there and address the issue."

News12 first reported on the trash heap when concerned citizen Elena Masterovoy began taking pictures of the property and filing 311 requests with the city. Two weeks later, the 20 or so bags of trash are the first sign of progress she has seen for cleanup efforts.

"Neighbors honestly very discouraged, very disappointed because they lost their trust and they lost they hope that it will be ending some they, you know, this garbage will be cleaned up," she said.

Fines and notices now also sit on the property's fence, but neighbors tell News12 the house has been abandoned for years. They hope an absentee owner won't be the reason the reason progress stops, despite the Department of Sanitation guidelines that prevent them from entering the private property to clean.

"This is not about property, this is source of diseases here. And because nobody live in this house, nobody will pay this ticket and nobody will clean it up," Masterovoy said.

Rosati tells News12 he believes the whole building should be condemned, if that's what it takes, to take back the street.

"This home should be condemned, given the looks of it and the structural integrity of the roof and what is visible, in the front and rear of the home," he said, adding that the rear of the property is also home to a second illegal dumping ground.