It has, as you might expect for a suburb of Birmingham within spitting distance of the University campus, been overrun by buy-to-let HMO landlords in recent years. On our road (at the bottom end, which is technically Bournbrook) about 90% of the houses are student rentals, with a small number of longer-term residents (we're fortunate in that our landlord can't be arsed to have anything to do with students). Which means that nobody gives a shit about maintenance or keeping things tidy[1]. The roll-out of wheeliebins a few years ago solved the rat problem, but turned the pavements into a perpetual wheeliebin slalom. I get the impression that things are slightly better at the top of the hill, with more of the rentals being to hospital employees, who aren't any more likely to maintain the stuff their landlord won't, but are a lot less inclined to drop litter or get drunk and smash things.
It's also a de-facto car park, except over the summer, when the university stops teaching, the BRITISH students move out, and the builders move in. Obviously the first thing they do when stripping a house to re-fit for HMO use is to dump the fridge on the pavement outside. The scrap metal fairy then vanishes the compressor, releasing any greenhouse gases within.
When we first moved here, a friend remarked that her sister had been a UoB student, and that what struck her about Selly Oak was the sheer number of fridges lying around. Hence the calendar...
(Due to the Colemanwealth Games, parking is currently residents-only and strictly enforced by wardens in a lot less PPE[1] than the usual council ones. Someone's been round and collected all the fly-tipping, too. And there's cheering and oohing and ahhing from the stickball pitches. It's all rather lovely.)
[1] The neighbours (housing association tenants) and I take it in turns to sweep up broken glass, because they have a dog and we have bicycles.
[2] When did traffic wardens start wearing motorcycle helmets in case they got beaten up?
