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LA's streets are drowning in 16,000 piles of trash. What gives?

Okay so check it—

### Your street might be drowning in other people's junk

No mames, you guys, but the 311 numbers just dropped and, like, it's literally wild. People are calling about trash more than anything else. We're talking **8,705 requests for item pickups** and another **7,487 for illegal dumping**. That's over 16,000 calls just for *stuff* people are leaving on our streets, ya sabes? It's like, you see it everywhere, right? Mattresses on the corner of Soto and Olympic, couches by the bus stop on Sunset right before you hit Echo Park.

### Why are we calling so much?

This isn't just a Westside problem, fam, this is all over. According to the latest 311 service request data, these junk calls are blowing everything else out of the water. Graffiti removal? That's way down at around 7,600 total requests. Even homeless encampment calls, which we know are a huge issue and absolutely heartbreaking, were just over 2,000.

* Item Pickups / Illegal Dumping: 16,192 requests

* Information-Only: 11,060 requests (people just asking questions, which is good!)

* Graffiti Removal: 7,670 requests

* Homeless Encampments: 2,024 requests

It makes you wonder, like, is it easier to just dump your old stuff than deal with the official channels? Or are we just so squeezed for space in this city that people literally have nowhere else to put it? City Hall needs to look at this, because if we're calling this much, it means the current system ain't working for folks. We gotta figure out if we need more bulky item pickup days or better resources to stop this.

That's the real LA, fam — east of the 110.

Marisol Vega-Cisneros, MiTL Sports Desk

Seriously, Keith and the crew break this stuff down every single morning — catch 'em live at mornings.live.

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