HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — She smells it in the morning when she walks to her car to go to work. She smells it when she returns home. She smells it when she eats dinner inside her apartment.
“Without being too vulgar, it literally smells like s**t,” she said.
That renter, whose identity we agreed to keep anonymous to protect her from any retaliation, lives at the River View Apartments near Temple Terrace. The complex is located off N. 56th St., directly on the Hillsborough River.
Right now, however, there’s another river on the minds of that neighbor and others: a river of sewage with a smell that’s unbearable at times.
“I constantly am spraying air fresheners, you know, because people come visit you, and they’re like, what’s wrong with your house? Why does it smell like that?” the neighbor said.
The renter is not just worried about the smell. She’s also worried about what the sewage overflow is doing to the environment — and Hillsborough River — because she and other neighbors say the sewage has flowed freely for weeks.
A video she sent ABC Action News, which she said was recorded Thursday afternoon, appears to show the overflow trickling downhill toward the river.
“It’s like turning on a faucet full blast and just letting it go — and it was doing that day and night, day in night,” she said.
According to Kathlyn Fitzpatrick, a communications coordinator with the City of Tampa, the city reported the overflow to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) on Dec. 29.
However, Fitzpatrick said the city is not responsible for the overflow. She said a clog in one of the apartment complex’s drain lines was to blame.
A pollution notice from the FDEP said the apartment is working to locate the clog and fix the problem. In an updated advisory sent late Thursday night it added that the overflow is not continuous and that the discharge has stopped, although the clog still hasn't been remedied.
Meanwhile, neighbors like the one who spoke to ABC Action News anonymously want more communication from the complex management.
“Communication is key,” she said. “Let us know what’s going on because we have to deal with this day in and day out.”
ABC Action News reached out to the apartment’s manager, who would not comment.
When asked what course of action frustrated neighbors can take to express their complaints, Fitzpatrick recommended they reach out to FDEP.
