Behind Eva Domnicz’s Arleta home is an alleyway lined with an old refrigerator, piles of cardboard containers for beer, construction debris and other junk. Some of the trash has been there long enough to be adorned with graffiti.

She knows the drill if she wants to get the carelessly tossed items hauled away.

The 72-year-old Domnicz says she makes a phone call to her local councilwoman, who has a “strike team” of two staffers who will pull up in their trash trucks, almost at the drop of a hat, to deal with the mess.

But each time the team comes by, the trash piles right back up and another call needs to be made.

The council office staffers only need to hear her name and voice, and they know which address to drive to. “They know me already,” Domnicz said. But she wishes it did not have to be that way.

“Sometimes, I don’t want to bother them,” she said. “I know I’m welcome, but I don’t want to keep calling.”

The problem with the trash has always been the vicious cycle that Domnicz and many other residents in the northeast San Fernando Valley experience.

Domnicz happens to live in a district, represented by Councilwoman Nury Martinez, that has employed a pair of staffers who are tasked solely to provide five-days-a-week, on-demand trash pick-up service. It is separate from the city 311 sanitation program that property owners already pay for, to pick up their trash and bulky items.

Martinez started the program in 2014, with one full-time employee. It was expanded last year to two people, each driving a truck to respond to the seemingly endless calls for pick-ups.

The trash being picked up include bulky items such as dingy mattresses, piles of trash left behind from RV encampments or construction debris likely left behind by unlicensed contractors who do not want to pay the dump fee at trash facilities.

Martinez’s 6th council district includes Van Nuys, Arleta, Sun Valley, Panorama City and North Hills. Her team works with the city to pick up as much as 150 tons of trash each month, her aides said.

Martinez said in a statement that her district is especially hard hit by illegal dumping from construction businesses, which was why she put in the extra resources to provide the clean-up team.

The sanitation department offers each council district services two times a month to pick up illegally dumped materials, but that is not enough for her district. The strike team, which was recently renamed to the “clean sweep team,” is meant to “ensure that our neighborhoods receive consistent clean-up service,” she said.

But some of the trash is avoidable, and Martinez is hoping to reduce the number of times her team is called. The large pieces of furniture and other bulky items could be picked up through the city’s existing 311 service, which is included in the “solid resources” fee that property owners pay to the city.

According to Martinez aide Lorena Bernal, there are misconceptions about the 311 services, the primary one being that many people believe it costs extra. There are also other barriers, such as general lack of awareness, especially among immigrant communities in which people are unfamiliar with what services are readily available to them, and may not know about services due to a language barrier.

Bernal, who leads a team of staffers in Martinez’s office who go out to address problems brought up by constituents, also said the 311 service of today is greatly improved. About six years ago, a smartphone app was released by the city that allows people to arrange for bulky item pick-ups, as well as other services such as graffiti removal.

But not enough people are aware of how much easier it is to use the so-called 311 service, Bernal said.

“Everyone has a smart phone,” Bernal said. “Everyone’s on Facebook. So it should be easy enough for them to download the 311 app and use the app to report stuff.”

Martinez’s office has been carrying out an awareness campaign, little by little. Bernal said each of her field deputies are required to do door knocking sessions two times a week. They also talk to groups of parents who are asked to share the information about the city’s 311 and the council office’s strike team services with their neighbors.

On Friday, Martinez is planning to taking the campaign even wider, by placing public service announcements on several dozen bus benches in the district telling people to use the 311 service, and also providing information about the clean sweep team.

Domnicz said that she first learned about Martinez’s clean sweep team a few years ago when a beauty business client of hers told her about it. Prior to that she did not know very much about her council person, and she did not know who Martinez was.

But she said she was pleasantly surprised by the quick response and friendliness of the staff on the phone.

While she is hoping for harsher enforcement against construction businesses, she said she is optimistic about the awareness campaign.

“It’s going to work,” she said. “It’s definitely going to work.”

Councilwoman Nury Martinez is trying to raise awareness about the city’s 311 and her office’s street cleaning team through bus bunch ads like this one near the northeast corner of Victory Boulevard and Sylmar Avenue in Van Nuys, that shows a Spanish-language public service announcement. (Courtesy of Councilwoman Nury Martinez’s office)

Councilwoman Nury Martinez is trying to raise awareness about the city’s 311 and her office’s street cleaning team through bus bunch ads like this one near the southwest corner of Victory Boulevard and Cedros Avenue in Van Nuys, that shows a English-language public service announcement. (Courtesy of Councilwoman Nury Martinez’s office)

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The story was updated to say that Martinez’s team and the city sanitation department together pick up as much as 150 tons of trash each month in the 6th council district.