Tenants at the New York City Housing Authority's Cypress Hills Houses say heat and the smell of trash in the air marks the summer season for them.
"You wanna puke," says Mary Chasis. "All that smell goes in my house." Tenants say the smell is especially bad for people who live downwind of the piles of trash.
"That stuff is toxic and you don't know what type of waste is in there," says another woman.
Sanitation workers pick up trash twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, at the Euclid Avenue housing complex. Tenants say that simply isn't enough because trash accumulates almost as fast as it is picked up.
Some tenants believe the trash may be dumped from different buildings or that there isn't enough room in the garbage trucks to pick up all the trash at the same time.
In March, trash was also piled up outside the complex, but Mother Nature was in tenants' favor, as it was colder outside.
NYCHA says it is looking into the issue at Cypress Hills.