Woman claims neighbors defecate in buckets, dump feces in others’ yards

PULASKI COUNTY, Ark. (KATV) - An Arkansas woman is concerned about her family’s health, claiming her neighbors have been defecating in buckets and the feces washes into her yard when it rains.

Erica Craig said she has been dealing with her neighbors’ fecal matter ending up on her property for about three years.

“They’ve been taking their feces in buckets and dumping it at the back of their property, and then across the street at another person’s property, they have been dumping it on their property, too,” she said.

She said at one point, the neighbors had a hollowed-out porta-potty and were letting the waste wash down into the ditches.

“Everybody around them has sold their houses, which are leaving the ones that are still left here to just kind of sit and suffer,” Craig said.

She adds that when the wind blows, the smell is almost unbearable.

“When the wind blows, it’s awful. You cannot sit outside. You cannot even sit in that backroom back there with the door open because it [the smell] just consumes the house,” she said.

Craig says her parents have lived in the same home for 32 years, and due to the fecal matter in the last few years, she has been worried about her family’s health.

“I have gotten sick. I had to go to the hospital for organ failure,” Craig said. “They did not know what caused it, and that was after they had started doing that. My dad has been to the hospital a couple of times. He was really sick there for a minute. Nobody is thinking it’s because of human waste, so that is not something they are looking at,” she said.

Craig says she has talked to the neighbors she claimed were responsible for the waste and has tried to help them, but they do not take the situation seriously. She claims she has also made attempts to contact different departments about the fecal matter but cannot get the problem fixed.

“I have contacted so many different departments, and none of them have done anything about it,” she said.

Craig’s home is about 300 feet outside of North Little Rock City limits, so she went to the county to see if they could help.

Pulaski County said it does not have jurisdiction over sewage matters and to direct any questions to the Arkansas Department of Health.

The health department sent the rules for general sanitation, including the disposal of human waste, which read in part, “All sewage must be deposited in sanitary sewers, sewage treatment facilities, septic tank systems or other systems or devices adequate to meet the needs of the people being served.”