Neighbors Complain of 'Toxic' Smell in North Lansing
"It's nasty smelling. I mean I just close the doors and hope that it doesn't affect me. I hope I don't get sick from it," said Phylis Drew.
"It's like a choking smell, you can almost feel it on your skin," said Rusty Jenkins.
They say the smell started drifting in when a massive coal pile at a storage site near their homes started smoldering.
"If you know what burning coal smells like it's pretty bad. There's yellow smoke coming off the pile," Jenkins said.
The Lansing Fire Department says the coal is on private property and it's up to the owners to take care of it. The company on that property, Conrad Yelvington Distributors, said they needed to gather more information before talking. However, they didn't return any calls, which left neighbors frustrated and without answers.
"We have small children around here, they don't need to be smelling that," said Drew.
Jenkins pointed out that he can see the coal pile from his backyard and says the smell gets unbearable at times.
"There's been days where we've had to breath through towels and close up the whole house."
So far, Jenkins says no one has stepped up to find the source of the problem and put an end to it. That leaves him and others wondering, how much longer they have to live with a smell they say has blanketed over their neighborhood.
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