By Marc Larocque

In Boston, when college students move into neighboring communities, residents are rankled by two major problems every year: trash and traffic.

Many streets in Mission Hill and Roxbury Crossing were clogged with debris and vehicles associated with students relocating last weekend. And although there were police officers around to direct traffic, representatives from different community organizations on patrol, with city government citizens and university officials speaking with students, problems persisted.

“There’s probably a better way to do this,” said City Councilor Michael Ross. “But how do you tell that to 1,000 disparate individuals who have their own plans for when they wake up, which is probably noon.”

Ross walked up Hillside Street on Mission Hill and tried to comfort the permanent residents. At one point, he looked up to a man on the third floor of a Mission Hill home.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a bad day.”

One woman, who was deep into pregnancy, was flustered by what she saw confusion and disorder during move in weekend.

“What if I need to get to the hospital right now? The streets are all backed up with moving and garbage trucks,” said Kerry-Ann Kendall, 33, who grew up in Mission Hill and has family on Pontiac Street. “And my dad is very sick, too. What if something happened? [Students] cause enough problems during the year, this is just adding insult to injury.”

Kendall even suggested a solution to the move in problems.

“They should stagger the move-ins so we don’t have to put up with this,” she said.

Kim Nielsen and Ron Buckley, both long-time tenants of Mission Hill, have been getting together for almost 10 years to watch “the move-in day mayhem.” At Nielsen’s home on Calumet Street, they make fun of the situation, with their feet up on the porch, drinking beer and eating Doritos.

“This move-in thing has been going on since about 1995,” said Nielson, 57, who has lived there for 30 years. “It used to be more of a family neighborhood until they got rid of rent control.”

Buckley, 37, a Northeastern alumnus, has lived in Mission Hill since college and has noticed a change in how students value their possessions.

“People just buy a couch for a year now,” Buckley said. “Everything is becoming so disposable and the people moving in bring more and more stuff into their new place. We never had that much stuff. And people now throw out clothes, CDs, pots and pans.”

“I still have my couch from the seventies,” Nielsen said.

The sound of moving trucks backing up pulsated through the neighborhood. All of a sudden, a tirade of car horns began to beep. “All right! That’s not going to make it any better!” shouted a sanitation worker walking by, scooping furniture and mattresses into a garbage truck. City garbage collectors worked overtime because of Student Turnover Weekend, making multiple trips through college areas heavily populated with college students.

“The hardest part of moving is the trash itself,” said Jeffrey Doggett, director of community relations and government affairs at Northeastern. “But if we can free up the streets, the trash collectors can get in and do their jobs. When traffic goes into Tremont and Huntington, that’s when we have a problem. We’ve been able to have institutions let Mission Hill residents use their parking lots to free up the streets so there is room for moving trucks to park. It’s not perfect, though.”

The Mayor’s 24-hour hotline, which allowed for residents throughout the city to voice concerns about the weekend, received 60 calls complaining about trash during the weekend. In Mission Hill, Boston’s Inspectional Services Department Code Enforcement Division wrote 274 violations for littered sidewalks, dumpster overflow and similar violations.

Northeastern began collaborating in the Mission Hill moving day effort three years ago, Doggett said, along with the Mayor’s Office and other city agencies. Doggett was handing out “Welcome To Boston” packets to incoming students on Mission Hill and talked to students about responsibility in their new dwellings.

“Before we started this campaign you would have seen wall-to-wall moving trucks and you couldn’t see the sidewalk,” Doggett said.

Another concern is that unsightly trash isn’t just on the sidewalks.

“Some students just leave their apartments without removing much of their stuff,” said Denise Nunez, 51, who has lived in Mission Hill all of her life. “Then, the new tenants just throw it all out the back porch, even food from the refrigerators. Throughout Mission Hill there are these little junkyards. It’s horrid.”

This happens every year, Nunez said.

“We love you guys; you’re great for the neighborhood, but it’s not all yours,” she said. “A new set of students move in and think they own the place. They start partying right away, trash the place, and don’t even want to meet the neighbors.”