Sheffield residents call for intervention to help man eating out of bins every night for past year

Tenants in a block of flats to the north of city centre, which The Star has chosen not to name for the man’s safety, say they wake up every morning to the sight of black waste bags ripped open in the lobby. They have to clean it up themselves.

It is the work of a young man in the area who, for over 12 months, has reportedly gone around flats every night dressed in black. Each time, he drags bin bags into the stairwells, tears them open and eats the contents.

When approached in the act, the young man reportedly becomes aggressive, verbally abusive, and will flash the complainant.

Out of concern for his health and the wellbeing of everyone in the block, tenants say they have been appealing for help for over a year.

But to date, they say “nothing has been done”.

When they asked the housing officer, he said it was a police matter. When they asked the police, they said it was a housing officer matter. When they went above the housing officer, the council said it was a community health matter. When, in March 2022, they wrote to the council’s director of housing, Janet Sharpe, she did not reply.

“At the present moment, no agency appears prepared to take any responsibility for what is clearly a danger to his own health and that of local residents,” said one resident, who asked not to be named.

"He frequently vomits back up what he ingests, which is then left behind, along with the scattered contents of bags of rubbish in the entrance lobbies of the flats for the residents to clean up the following morning.

"Someone must be responsible for this situation. Does someone need to die before these agencies act?

"We are beyond incredulous that this issue has been left for so long and that there appears to be no agency to take responsibility for it.

"We know that mental health and social services in Sheffield are overwhelmed, but are we as a society seriously reduced to ignoring the dangerous behaviour of a clearly challenged young man eating discarded food taken from waste bins?”

As well as endangering his own health, residents say the behaviour causes other problems.

The opened bin bags are attracting rats to the neighbourhood. Broken glass and the sharp edges of tins put pets at risk. Meanwhile, a family who recently moved to the block were alarmed at the bin bags by their front door and thought they were the targets of racist behaviour.

When approached by The Star, South Yorkshire Police declined to comment, and said they would forward the concerns on to the neighbourhood’s local team.

Sheffield City Council was asked what actions were being taken to help the young man.

Janet Sharpe, director of housing, for housing and neighbourhood services, said: “We understand the concerns that (this neighbourhood’s) residents have raised and it’s clear that this situation needs to be resolved.

"We are concerned about this young man’s welfare and would like to reassure people living in the area that we are acting on the issues that they have outlined.”