EXCLUSIVE: Daycare shoos children away from human waste in SF park

Byby Elissa Harrington KGO logo
Friday, September 1, 2017
Daycare shoos children away from human waste in SF park
A San Francisco mother found something downright disgusting at a children's playground Thursday. It took six hours, but ABC7 News confirmed the city has cleaned up the area.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A San Francisco mother found something downright disgusting at a children's playground Thursday. It took six hours, but ABC7 News confirmed the city has cleaned up the area.

Kids at San Francisco's Sue Bierman Park didn't find a treasure chest aboard the playground pirate ship, but some of them did step in something else.

"We showed up this morning and there's a huge pile of human feces under the play structure," said daycare director Mary Rosquites.

Rosquites was there with 12 kids from her daycare. She covered the mess with baby wipes and did her best to shoo children away. She also called 311 to report the problem.

"I was expecting that it would be cleaned up quite quickly being as it's a health hazard," said Rosquites.

But hours later it was still there.

"Now we have to go home and take a bath," said San Francisco Tracey Guerin.

Many parents, like Guerin are fed up with dirty parks in the city.

Parents tell ABC7 News they have had all sorts of problems with sandboxes in the city. They sometimes find things like broken glass, garbage, and even needles buried in the sand.

"I mean I never would in a million years let him near a sandbox in the city," Gurin said, referencing her child.

Sandboxes have become such a nuisance the rec and parks department is considering phasing them out as playgrounds go through renovations.

Jenifer Friedenbach with the coalition on homelessness insists there's a solution to these problems -- more public bathrooms.

"There's a really severe bathroom shortage in San Francisco, especially at night. There's really virtually nowhere for people to use the restroom," she said.

She says the person who decided to use the playground instead might be suffering from mental illness.