I live in an up-and-coming neighborhoods filled with young professionals. I’ve also noticed a lot of homeless people living around here too.

There’s a long paved trail that goes by a river, and I like to walk my dog there. I’ve seen a few make-shift tents and little home-bases built along the trail. Sometimes they make me a little uncomfortable, but I haven’t encountered anything really offputting except for this one thing:

The trail goes under a few pedestrian bridges and overpasses. Under one of them, maybe 10 feet from the trail, someone has used rocks to build a little wall that I assume they use as shelter. It makes me a little uncomfortable, but I try to be accepting and respect this person’s need for shelter. Here’s my issue though- this person uses a bush right along the trail as a toilet. There is toilet paper with poop smeared on it strewn around the bush and sometimes on the actual trail. Once I realized this, I no longer walk on that part of the trail. It’s disgusting and makes me really uncomfortable to walk by it. I know everyone poops, but good lord.

What should I do? Ignore it and find a different route? Call some organization? The police? What are the legal ramifications for this person? What about the ethics of the situation? What would you do?

Topics: police, cleanliness, bathroom, homelessness, parks, ethics, eeewww