Maintaining the streets in the Jerome-Gun Hill Business Improvement District is no easy task.

Just ask longtime street cleaner Mohamed Cisse, who has spent the last eight years sweeping sidewalks, emptying garbage cans, and picking up trash in the district.

Cisse, a Senegalese native, works for Street Plus, the company previously known as Atlantic Maintenance Corporation. The company is responsible for keeping streets clean in the Jerome-Gun Hill BID, which covers Jerome Avenue between Mosholu Parkway and East Gun Hill Road; East Gun Hill Road between Jerome and Webster avenues; and shorter stretches of East 208th Street, Mosholu Parkway, DeKalb Avenue and Webster Avenue. Private cleaning services are a hallmark to a BID.

Street Plus provides sanitation services for numerous other BIDs, including the Union Square and Flatiron 23rd Street Partnerships, and has been the company in charge of keeping the Jerome-Gun Hill BID clean from day one. Street Plus’s four workers man the streets seven days a week, 361 days a year.

Street Plus Co-CEO David Goldberg said when the BID first started and his company first came to the neighborhood 20 years ago, the area “felt a lot dirtier, and less safe and thriving than it does today.”

“We’re still a mom-and-pop kind of neighborhood, but the rate of vacancies has decreased, and that has been some of the driving force,” Goldberg said.

When asked what he wished more people in the neighborhood knew about trash cleanup in the BID, Goldberg said it’s important to note that Street Plus “supplements” the services provided by the city and the responsibility of property owners.

“The longer people live in the neighborhood, the more connected they become, and they have more pride to make sure their neighborhood looks clean and feels safe,” Goldberg said. “This connectivity to the neighborhood is so important.”

As for Cisse, he starts his days at 8 a.m. and cleans until 4 p.m. with a mid-day break. The crews start by clearing the sidewalks, bagging up garbage for the Department of Sanitation to pick up and changing garbage can liners.

“Working outside isn’t easy. But I like this job because I have family in Africa and everything I do is for my family,” said Cisse, who also works part-time at a grocery store in Bronxville in the evenings after his shift ends.

In some instances, Cisse’s chronicles at the BID make his job sound more like he’s a street sweeper in the Wild West.

There was the time about two years ago when Cisse, now 51, was changing a garbage bag when a passerby tossed trash into the empty can. Cisse said when he asked the man what he was doing, he threw a cup of hot coffee in the street sweeper’s face, burning his eyes and damaging his vision. And he claims that one time a drunk man tried to hit him with a bottle of alcohol from under the steps of the 4 train, believing that the street cleaner stole his bicycle.

“This can be a very dangerous job,” Cisse said. “And when it’s snowy, you’re outside, rainy, you’re outside, windy, you’re outside—that’s not easy.”

But most days, Cisse said the frustrations are more bureaucratic—the endless loop of residents and supers leaving their building’s trash for him to pick up, and Cisse reprimanding, and being strung along with calls to 311 and the Department of Sanitation.

Still, given the ups and downs, it’s clear Cisse knows more business owners and neighbors than he does not know.

“The neighborhood has changed [in the years that I’ve worked here], but it’s no problem for me and my guys,” Cisse said.