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Letter: These New West portable toilets are raising a stink for us

Editor: At the start of this pandemic, health experts/officials and the media were telling us if you can smell someone’s bad breath, then you're too close.
portable toilets new west porta potties belmont
Portable toilets at Belmont Street in New Westminster. Submitted

Editor:

At the start of this pandemic, health experts/officials and the media were telling us if you can smell someone’s bad breath, then you're too close.   

When the public porta potties arrived on Belmont Street – which is predominately residential, with some commercial - some city residents giggled, some laughed, and some now worry about their health, including those who have existing respiratory or compromised immune systems.

Some (visitors to this area) choose to display poor social distancing skills while not self-isolating at home.                                             

Myself and some fellow residents/owners from a tiny section of the Belmont building have limited enjoyment and use of our homes due to the human waste stench of gases floating and blowing through our closed windows from the PPPs. 

Rarely are we wind- or breeze-free at this location, as most residents of our city already know. These odours do not dissipate well once trapped inside. Calls to the city started on May 1. It's getting warm outside and it stinks - we need our windows open. 

If we can smell it in our homes, then they're too close.

Penny Lehnert, New Westminster