Residents Group Dumps on Wachs : Sunland-Tujunga: Neighborhood activists deliver cleanup message, depositing junk in trash bin outside councilman’s office.

A group of Sunland and Tujunga residents tired of trash littering their community took to the streets themselves Sunday, hauling broken-down couches, tattered chairs and beat-up appliances to a Dumpster set up outside Councilman Joel Wachs’ field office.

The Sunland-Tujunga Citizens’ Patrol, a group of about 50 residents who banded together last year to clean up graffiti and patrol their neighborhood, had tried to get Wachs to order city crews to clear curbs of trash, said Nina Royal, secretary of the group.

Finally the group decided to do it themselves.

So at about 6 a.m. Sunday, the group began scooping up tires, old couches, chairs, broken furniture and even a washing machine. The junk overflowed the dumpster, set up in the parking lot of Wachs’ Sunland-Tujunga field office.