Resident Calls On City To Clean Up Elephant Hill

EL SERENO (LOS ANGELES) — Christian Aeschliman said he pleaded with city workers to clean up gallons of urine that just sat on a sidewalk in his neighborhood, even taking to social media to hopefully get their attention. 

It took three weeks of begging the city to send sanitation workers to clear the jugs of pee before someone else decided to clean it themselves.

"I was like guys, somebody beat you to it," said Aeschliman. "I think somebody just went and did it on their own."

While the Los Angeles Department of Public Works confirmed they received two calls, they said that the crews sent could not find the jugs on the sidewalk.

This is only a snippet of the mountain of garbage that has accumulated near Elephant Hill.
In response to the city's lack of service at Elephant Hill Aeschliman formed the "Heroes of Elephant Hill," an organization of volunteers that meet up, bag what they can and haul it off the hill with a magnificent view of the San Gabriel Valley and downtown Los Angeles. 

"Yeah, if you look above the horizon, gorgeous," Aeschliman said. "If you look down here, you got piles of trash." 

According to Aeschliman, the city claimed they cannot clean the trash at Elephant Hill because the dirt road that leads to it is too tough for city crews to traverse. 

"I came up here in a minivan," Aeschliman said "It's safe you can come up here. They just don't want to clean up here." 

The city's insufficient cleaning of the area may be caused by the complicated ownership of Elephant Hill. According to city data, Elephant Hill is owned partly by the city, partly by a conservation group and partly by private parties. This division of land made it complicated for the city to determine which areas they are responsible for cleaning. 

A public works spokeswoman said she could not answer questions about Elephant Hill without first confirming if it's private property or public right of way. 

While Aeschliman is happy to help his community he is frustrated by the constantly accumulating garbage and just wants the city to do a better job.

"I'm happy to help my community and everything but this is LA Sanitation's job," he said. "LA Sanitation should be doing this."