PM’s neighbors lodge garbage complaint

Enraged Jerusalem residents living next door to the prime minister’s official residence are fed up with the copious amounts of garbage that their illustrious neighbor produces, which they say overflows the neighborhood receptacles and dirties the street.

With only two standard-sized garbage bins outside the large building on the corner of Balfour and Smolenskin streets, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s neighbors complain that the refuse piles up in mounds and spills into the street, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Thursday.

One resident, Hanan Rubin, sent an angry letter to Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat about the problem.

“It is many years now that my family and I have lived adjacent to the Prime Minister’s Residence,” Rubin wrote. “The street of the most important citizen in the country is littered with mountains of garbage, and we can’t take it anymore.”

Rubin noted in his letter that official events hosted at the residence produce large quantities of garbage for the street’s limited disposal units. To make matters worse, frequent pruning of trees and bushes in the area — for security reasons — also leads to more uncollected refuse.

Another street resident, identified only as Pnina, said she too has sent numerous letters to the Prime Minister’s Residence to complain about the garbage situation.

“Each time they assure me that they will deal with it, but they don’t do anything,” she said.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment. The Jerusalem municipality said in response that the street is cleaned at least once a day, sometimes more. The municipality added that as soon as the complaint from the residence was received a cleaning crew was sent to the street to tidy it up.