LUBBOCK, Texas — Lubbock County residents discovered an unwelcome surprise just south of the city Friday. An old mobile home, dilapidated and imposing, was abandoned in the middle of a county road at the corner of CR 7700 and CR 2040.

“It was sitting this way across the road. Like they tried to pull it in here and lost it, and just left it. You had one little lane [and] had to go up on the dirt there to get through,” said Steve, a 30-year Lubbock County resident who asked we omit his last name.

He said this mobile home is the latest in a string of illegal dumping that has crowded their narrow roads with trash and even dead animals.

“You can go down this road and see junk dumped all over the place,” Steve said. “We get old cars dumped out here… deer and everything else… there’s a dog dumped over here already.”

On his daily walk this weekend, Steve made a discovery even more startling than the mobile home — two dead goats, dumped on top of each other and left to rot on the side of the road — and just 100 feet from them, a dead dog.

His neighborhood is now asking the county to keep a closer watch on illegal dumping. He says the Sheriff’s Office recently began patrolling the area once to twice a day, but says he hopes for more protection.

“They need to watch at night more because people drive through just dumping stuff,” Steve said. “I’ve seen people drive down this road with people on the back of a trailer chunking stuff out.”

Residents within Lubbock city limits may report dumping violations to Code Enforcement. The city department may often track down the source of the waste and issue citations. According to the Lubbock County Sheriff’s website, their environmental department provides at least one deputy available 24 hours a day to respond to illegal dumping, burns, junk vehicles and tall weeds.

Steve’s neighborhood hopes the Sheriff’s Office will help enforce the laws prohibiting the recent dumping in their area. They encourage residents to utilize one of Lubbock’s numerous landfills and dump sites, where they may leave large waste for a small fee. Those who choose to illegally dump their waste in his neighborhood are harming their quality of life.

“This stuff, it breaks down enough, it blows all over the place. We get trash from this building right now. I’ve got big old tarps I’ve thrown away. We fill up our dumpsters so they don’t have to do stuff,” Steve said. “They need to stop doing it. People live in this area.”