Exarchia residents tired of people using streets as toilet
Athens’s bohemian neighborhood of Exarchia, the stamping ground of artists, anarchists and addicts, is being plagued by late-night revelers relieving themselves in the street, locals have complained to Kathimerini.
“We aren’t talking about refugees, drug addicts or the homeless. We’re talking about ordinary people who go to a bar and then urinate or defecate on the sidewalks,” said a female resident identified only as S.K.
The problem, locals say, is most acute in the district’s bar-packed streets and parking lots – particularly that on the corner of Metaxa and Zoodochou Pigis streets.
“People use it as a public toilet. I have seen people park their car at night, urinate, and then carry on,” said a local, identified as T.T. “You see people coming out of the bar, walking to the [parking lot] to relieve themselves instead of visiting the bathroom on the premises, and then returning to the bar.”
Municipal sanitation workers confirmed to Kathimerini that the foul-smelling problem has been observed along Metaxa Street. However, authorities say no official complaint has been filed. The main streets are cleaned on a daily basis, they add.
“It’s a sign that the area has resigned itself [to the overall neglect]. The idea is that things are crap, so we’ll take one too. There’s no shame, there’s no fear that they will be seen. It’s a general decadence,” S.K. said.
