Street Cleaning

Street cleaning, which consisted of picking up any debris off the streets in Ardis was considered one of the worst and filthiest jobs a person could take. The price for street cleaning was very low, making it even more disliked as a job. The most common street cleaners were homeless citizens who the king payed or whichever lord got to tired of the litter, but also, if the streets got to filthy, especially in the slums, the king would have the criminals in the dungeons be brought out to clean with three guards for each one. The criminals got no pay whatsoever, but most of them actually enjoyed the excuse to get some fresh air after years of sitting in the dungeons.

The streets of Ardis were narrow and many of the upper class used them as their dumping ground for any and all waste from their houses, leaving the others to clean it up.

“What’s wrong with putting waste in the streets? It leaves the homeless a way to earn enough to eat.”
~Lord Laven Hargi, Earl of Soevn.

There had been several attempts to stop the problem, but after a few weeks of obeying whatever law was in place, most went back to the old and easier ways.

In the slums, where the upper-class didn’t live, the problem was even worse, for no one in the slums had enough money to pay someone to clean it up or cared enough about the problem to do it themselves.

Years later, a young gentleman finally figured out a system and convinced the king to set it in order. Metal bins were delivered to each and every home in the kingdom and anyone caught throwing something on the street instead of into the bins got a fine and in some cases ended up in the dungeons. He then encouraged the king to have the homeless who had lost their jobs to carry the bins to a hole dug outside the city. The system was not perfect, but it did help a lot, although people carrying the bins to the hole were considered as filthy as ever.