She tried the council for a week, then wrote a poem on a bit of cardboard

Rubbish had been building up in the alley behind Mary Courtney’s house in Coventry. She reported it through the council’s website, through FixMyStreet, to her councillor and by email. She was told the land was not the council’s. A week later it was all still there.

6 October 2026

Mary Courtney standing in a narrow brick alleyway in Coventry, with curly red hair and dark-framed glasses, wearing a bright pink cardigan over a patterned shirt — Mary Courtney in the alley.
Photo: BBC/Mary Courtney

The alleyway runs between Broomfield Road and Kensington Road in Coventry, and things had been accumulating in it. Mary Courtney listed them to the BBC: a pushchair, bedding, a trolley, bin bags, and a bag of empty fizzy drink bottles filled to the brim with urine.

I think it is a biohazard. What if kids think it is a bottle of orange pop?Mary Courtney, to BBC News

The fly-tip in the alley: a doll lying face up among black bin bags and torn cardboard, a Coca-Cola bottle filled with brown liquid in the foreground, and the cardboard protest sign standing above it all — The tip, with the sign standing in it. The doll and the bottle are both in the poem.
Photo: Mary Courtney

Everything official

She reported it first through FixMyStreet and said little came of it. She contacted the council, who told her the land was not owned by them and that no action would be taken. She questioned that, since the council had installed streetlights in the alleyway.

Then she tried, in her word, non-stop: the council’s website, her local councillor, emails, photographs posted to the Hearsall Residents’ Association page.

A week later it was still there. It was just obstacles and more refusals and still the urine was there. Fly-tipping is like a magnet, it just gathers more things.Mary Courtney

The recycling bin

She put photographs of the waste on social media, and somebody suggested making an art installation out of it.

I thought, what is there to lose? I had tried everything officially and it had been a failure. So I rummaged inside my recycling bin, got a piece of cardboard and wrote a little poem on a protest banner.Mary Courtney

A piece of brown cardboard with a hand-lettered poem in red, purple and orange marker inside a blue zigzag border on magenta, reading Doll down in the dump, drunk on bottled urine, dead on a flytip inn — The whole of it. Three lines in marker pen, on a flap of cardboard from her own recycling.
Photo: Mary Courtney

The poem reads: Doll down in the dump. Drunk on bottled urine. Dead on a flytip inn. There is a doll in the rubbish underneath it, and a Coca-Cola bottle of something brown.

Thursday, then Friday

She stood the sign next to the rubbish, photographed it, and put the picture online on the Thursday, tagging her local councillor, Patricia Hetherton. On the Friday she watched city enforcement officers clearing the waste away.

The same alleyway on Friday, swept empty, red brick walls on both sides, a drainpipe, and a green wheelie bin at the far end under a grey sky — The alley on Friday 2 October, cleared.
Photo: Mary Courtney

She said she was very happy, and that the better part was what Hetherton told her afterwards: the council will look at a prevention plan. The council has been approached for comment.

This isn’t a one-off and it is just so depressing.Mary Courtney

It is not the first time she has done this. She has sketched a house on Albany Road before, for the same reason.

Carry a story in five words

We run a game called Long Story Short: one real news sentence a day, and you keep the five words that carry it. Today’s is below. Do play.

How to play

One real news sentence. The job is to keep the five words that carry the story and let the rest go, then guess. Blue means the right word in the right place, orange the right word in the wrong place.

Yesterday: Arsenal were three down when a fan stormed out of his house, and in the valley below he found a stranded woman, chest-deep in mud for four hours. The five were Arsenal fan found stranded woman.

Play today’s on the full page ›

Everything here, including all of the quotations, is from Isabella Boneham’s report for BBC News, published on 4 October 2026 from the West Midlands. The photographs are the BBC’s and Mary Courtney’s, used by permission.