Tired of waking up to find dog poop on your front lawn? If you live in Chicago, you’re far from alone. Turns out, 2016 was a particularly busy year in the city for dog poop complaints.
RentHop recently published a study on dog poop complaints throughout Chicago. Turns out, 2016 was a record-setting year in the city for people complaining about dog owners leaving behind smelly gifts on their front lawns. And RentHop has discovered, using data from the city of Chicago’s list of Sanitation Code Violations, that 2017 is on track for an even higher number of complaints about rude dog owners.
Turns out, there’s a bit of science to dog poo problems. RentHop found that March tends to be the busiest month for complaints. That might be because of all that thawing snow revealing hidden poop piles. People tend to complain about dog poop most often on Mondays, followed by Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
RentHop found, too, that residents in neighborhoods in which there is a greater number of owner-occupied housing units, and less rentals, tend to complain the most. The West Englewood neighborhood tends to generate the highest number of dog poop complaints in the city, with a yearly average of 26.5 complaints. West Pullman came in second with an average of 22.2 complaints a year, while Hermosa averaged 21.9 complaints and Washington Heights 20.5.
Chicago’s Near North Side neighborhood tended to generate the lowest number of complaints, 0.63 a year on average. The Loop was next lowest with 1.05 average yearly complaints.
Overall, RentHop found 1,090 complaints about dog poop in Chicago in 2016. That was up 32.1 percent from 2015 when the city saw 831 complaints.
