After a week of protests, which included clashes between demonstrators and federal security forces, the Congress area once again suffered street closures, closed businesses, dirt and a habit that is repeated: the neighborhood became an open-air
bathroom.
The intense heat wave increases the odors and dirt that remain on sidewalks and containers.
Behind the Congress, on Combate de Los Pozos, the walls against the sidewalk are evidence of an endless row of urine stains.
“This week's stifling heat, with a wind chill of 39°, makes a disgusting combination that intensifies the smell much more,” says Rosina Santos, a resident of the area, as she passes by with her shopping cart and her face mask. .
In front of a Maxikiosco in Alsina 1937 there are two containers together.
Neighbors say it is the ideal situation for it to function as a toilet where many can hide.
“At night, men and women, or homeless people, come, stand in the middle and urinate.
And
in the morning the smell is much stronger
,” explains Abigail Oño, a salesperson at the store.
“The pressure washer passes but that's just water.
What's the point of throwing water into a container full of pee?
It just makes it spread much more, no detergent, no bleach.
It doesn't work,” he adds.
Urine marks on the wall in the Congress area.
Neighbors and merchants say it is a constant every time there are protests.
Photo: Guillermo Rodriguez Adami
On the way back, on Sarandí at 109, Teresa Huancara serves her fruit and vegetable self-service.
“When you pass by the smell hits you, because on the walls and in the large bins that I have there, they do everything.
They use that at any time, especially when there are no police.
They have no problem pissing with a lot of people passing by.
Most of them are drunk.
And the truth is that I never saw them come to clean.
“We throw water and bleach,” she says tiredly.
In Sarandí and Hipólito Yrigoyen's building, Carlos Captvla is seen throwing a bucket of water on the sidewalk.
He has lived there for more than 20 years and says that each time the area is becoming, at an accelerated pace, an
“open-air bath.”
Neighbors and merchants in the Congress area say that garbage containers are used as bathrooms every time there are protests.
Photo: Guillermo Rodríguez Adami
“When I go out the smell is horrible.
In the middle of the two containers people stand there and pee.
The container is cleaned once every 15 days.
Thousands of people come here to work and constantly pass through these streets, it is the most popular place when it comes to
demonstrations.
There should be a public bathroom, there are no chemical bathrooms either.
Where do these people go to relieve themselves, if in any business you have to consume to enter the bathroom? ”He maintains.
Carlos's question is not nonsense.
In 2018, Law 6,107 was passed, which requires the Buenos Aires Government to
build public bathrooms
in green spaces of more than 3 hectares.
“A gradual implementation of public bathrooms” was ordered.
However, the norm was not regulated and therefore not enforced.
When asked by
Clarín,
sources from the Buenos Aires Government said that the construction of public bathrooms is not planned for the moment.
Neighbors and merchants in the Congress area say that garbage containers are used as bathrooms every time there are protests.
Photo: Guillermo Rodríguez Adami
Myriam Panoso runs a grocery store in Hipólito Yrigoyen.
She says that on demonstration days the smell and garbage increase.
“What's more,
you saw that there is a line of police behind the containers
, well, people don't care and they pee without a problem.
The police don't say anything and people have no respect for them,” she says.
Myriam, a merchant in the Congress area, points out two containers that are used as a bathroom when there are demonstrations.
Photo: Guillermo Rodriguez Adami
Regarding cleaning, the woman explains that the pressure washer runs twice a month and at night.
“They pour water into the containers and that's it.
Those Police hydrant trucks could also be used to wash the streets.
I sell vegetables and unfortunately the smell is mixed.
Many neighbors told me that they call to complain about the cleaning, but they have no answers,”
she remarks.
On Montevideo and Rivadavia Avenue is Confitería Delgado.
“When there are demonstrations, it is obviously much worse, but every day is like that.
They leave us garbage, they urinate on our blinds, but we also
find glasses or bottles with pee
.
We clean the sidewalks ourselves, because the smell is stronger than the bakery.
The pressure washers clean in the square, but not here,” summarized one of the vendors.
Cleaning operations
From the Buenos Aires Ministry of Public Spaces they said that cleaning the sidewalk is the responsibility of the front owners themselves.
But they explained that areas like Congress, with high circulation of people, are cleaned weekly with
trucks and pressure washers.
The Buenos Aires Government said that weekly cleanings are carried out in Congress.
Regarding the frequency of cleaning the containers, they explained that it is carried out every 10 or 15 days.
The same collection companies do it, once the containers have been emptied by the trucks.
Buenos Aires sources added that throughout the neighborhood there are more than 670 containers, including green ones, and more than 1,100 paper baskets.
In turn, they said that
“intensive cleaning” operations
are carried out periodically in the most complex blocks and when there are demonstrations or other
massive activities.
“The social situation, added to the high circulation of people as a result of (among other things) marches and demonstrations as well as various social, commercial and cultural events, celebrations, fairs, etc. (even scheduled) implies continuous and operational hygiene reinforcements pre and after events,” they noted.
S.C.