By Jordan Shifman
Some Bank Street residents are finding it hard to get a good night’s sleep.
What’s keeping them awake is the noise made by Ottawa street cleaners and sweepers. Although cleaning does take place during the day across the city, major roads such as Bank Street have clean-ups scheduled as late as midnight.
Manuel Cua has lived at the intersection of Bank and Nepean streets for 18 years. He works two jobs, one as a mailman and as a supervisor helping immigrants find homes.
Every day he wakes up at 4 a.m. for his mail route, but often gets little sleep because thecleaners arrive just before midnight.
Cua says the cleaning takes about 30 minutes and the workers have started a ritual of breaking bottles found on the street.
“They say the broken pieces are easier for their machines to pick up.
“There have been times when I ran out of patience and confronted them. I asked if the bottles could be placed in a recycling bin instead. I even offered to do it myself in the morning. They said they would continue to break the bottles and I should mind my own business.”
A city official says residents have every right to be upset, but main roads must be kept clean.
“I know there have been concerns expressed by residents in respect to the noise created at night. We simply just have to do it. We try to be as quiet as possible, but the machines are fairly loud,” says Anne Huneault,the city’s surface operations co-ordinator.
“It would simply be too difficult to sweep at noon,” she says.
“It’s more practical to clean at night. That’s the whole rationale behind it. The liability is far greater to be cleaning during the day and have a person injured or breathing in the dust.”
Joseph Bokhaut agrees.
“I worked for Elections Canada during the summer and I used to walk past there every day. Bank Street is very narrow and I can see how it would be difficult for a truck to get through to do its job properly during the day,” he says.
Don Johnston lives across the street from Cua and has lived there for 20 years.
“It’s at the point now where I think they must get paid by the decibel,” he says. “The workers know we’re unhappy and they’ve gotten louder. They take great pride in revving their machines for us.”
Like Johnston, Cua agrees the noise is getting out of hand.
“I live here because it’s practical for me for my work. If not for that, I would move. No one should live like this,” says Cua.