'Residents would prefer the government to let their own district councils be in charge of cleaning the areas they live in,' said ADPL member Yum Kwok-chun.

About a third of the respondents, or 104 residents, said there were dirty places near where they lived that needed to be cleaned, indicating that much still needed to be done despite the recent post-Sars clean up drives, said Mr Yum.

Those living in buildings with incorporated owners gave an average score of 6.4 on a scale of 10 when asked to rate their satisfaction with their building's hygiene standards, compared to only 4.9 given from those living in buildings dependant on the government's cleaning services.

Mr Yum said the clear difference showed people were better off when left in charge of cleaning their own buildings.

There are about 12,000 buildings without incorporated owners and about 30 to 40 new owners' corporations are set up each year. District councillor Leung Lai said that at that rate, it would take more than 40 years for all the buildings in Shamshuipo alone to each have an owners' corporation.

The government needed to make residents realise the importance of cleanliness so that they themselves would want to keep their neighbourhoods clean, and this was best done through the district councils without the government's bureaucracy, he said.

'The government visited certain areas, cleaned up once, then that's it. The places simply go back to their normal dirty states within days,' Mr Leung said.

'It's no use the government coming to clean up once and then just going away, because the places just go back to being dirty after a week or two.'