CINCINNATI -- At first, some residents of Uright Place and Ault View Avenue thought the foul smell haunting their neighborhood was a dead animal.
A search for the source, however, didn’t point to roadkill, but to a black stain left on the concrete by a city vehicle.
“Especially with the sun beating on it, it just sort of reeks,” said Anne Schneider, who lives nearby.
Schneider and her husband, Matthew, said that a week ago, a garbage truck knocked over a neighborhood fire hydrant and popped a leak, leaving a trail of black, stinking sludge all down the road.
City crews put down an absorbent and swept some of it up over the weekend, but the rancid run-off remains.
The Schneiders said Wednesday that they were not as concerned about the smell as the potential effects of contact with the stain, especially among children.
“There are probably a dozen kids right around here that walk every day along this street to school, and they’re walking on it,” Matthew Schneider said. “I make my kids take their shoes off at the door because we don’t know what the waste is.”
Anne and Matthew Schneider said they believed the stain was likely a combination of oil and fluid from trash bags; they and their neighbors hope that it will be washed away soon.
