This is a picture taken by one of the beat officers down on Leicester's St Matthews estate.
It's a littered communal stairwell in one of the blocks of flats down there.
Look closely and you'll see a drinks can fashioned into a crack pipe.
Some of it is just litter, pure and simple. Ciggy butts and the like.
Now generally when I write stories I apply the 'what would my mum make of this?' test.
How would she feel walking through the city centre come Friday night? Would she be upset by groups of kids hanging around the Clock Tower on a Saturday afternoon?
In those cases I don't think she'd be much bothered. Although, some people tell us and the police they feel otherwise.
I don't need to ask how she'd feel if she had this crap on her doorstep.
One of the residents told us: "I am fed up with all the people coming onto the stairs where I live, they seem to be taking drugs and leaving the litter everywhere.
"Once I have been out shopping in the morning I feel too scared to come out again for the rest of the day."
Read that again.
This lady is staying in because she doesn't know what she's going to find outside her front door.
Wrong, wrong, very wrong.
The only positive here is the police team on St Matthews - good friends of the paper they are too - are going after the people who are putting this lady and others like her through this.
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