Garbage Problem

debodun

debodun

SF VIP
Location
way upstate in New York, USA
Yesterday was trash pickup in my community. I put the bin out the night before because I can never know when they will come around - they have come before 5 am and after 2 pm - so there's a big window. My bin was about half full when I put it out. I had to move it to get my car out when I went out yestreday since they hadn't yet come around yet. The bin felt heavier than I remembered. I looked inside at it was filled to the brim with someone else's trash - not even in bags - just loose garbage. I am not sure this is a problem in which I should involve the police. I can see them laughng me out of the station. They probably have bigger and more urgent things to handle, but I don't want whoever did it to get in the habit. There are two apartment houses next to me - one on the south side and one across the back street, but they have their own dumpsters for the tenants to use. All but one of my neighbors puts their own bins out (I've never seen trash bins at their house and oft wondered what they did about their garbage). Any suggestions?
 

Sticking a note on the bin is probably all you can do. I doubt it's illegal to use someone's bin while it's on the roadside.
You could report it to your sanitation dept, too...the people who collect your trash. Not sure there's anything they could do about it, though.
 

Contact the collectors and let them know. If ever your bin was too full, they might refuse to take it. Knowing that this is happening to you, they’d probably be reasonable.

Do you have recycling bins too? If our have any unacceptable material in them, they won’t take it.
 
Maybe it was a one-time thing & it won't get to be a habit. If it happens again, I would leave a note as I did several years ago when someone did the same thing.
My next-door neighbor's gardener dumped all their clippings into my green bin & there was no room left for my clippings & leaves.
I left a note on my neighbor's door - nothing nasty, just "You are probably not aware that your gardener uses my green bin. Please speak to him about it, since I have no room for my clippings & leaves. Thank you."
 
I'm assuming it's someone who doesn't want to pay a garbage bill and this is what they do. Or they cleared out some crap, noted your garbage can by the road, stopped and unloaded.

When I owned a house I hated paying that garbage bill of 90 dollars every 3 months. Sometimes I had only one small bag of garbage and there were a few times I had so little, I didn't even put the can out.
 
Living alone, I have very little trash. I could go a month or 6 weeks to fill it to the brim. The lock probably wouldn't work as Murrmurr mentioned, it is picked up by a robotized truck. I've seen vehicles pull up to the apartment dumpsters and someone gets out and unloads their trash in them. Trash service is expensive here. I am paying close to $50 a month for my paltry amount. People won't pay that when they could use that money for cigarettes and beer.
 
I caught a guy red handed putting trash in my dumpster, I told him to take it out. He offered me $10 so I took it and let his trash stay.
I have a 2 cu. yard dumpster, once my remodeling and major tree trimming is done I really should revert back to simple trash container service...it would be cheaper.
 
This is the first time I've heard of being billed for trash pick-up, though I'm sure that we pay through taxes.

We used to have 1 day per month where we could put out large items such as furniture.
 
What is the tipping fee at your local dump? If it’s not too much, it might be cheaper for you to just take it once per month and forgo the $50.

Our garbage & recycling pickup are included in our municipal taxes. No choice. There are some things they don’t take (mattresses, etc) and you pay a minimal fee at the dump.
 
As Aunt Bea mentioned, put on some rubber gloves, and poke around in the trash....looking for any paperwork that may have a name/address on it. If you find anything, then you can contact them and ask them, politely, to refrain from doing so in the future. Or....you can collect a bunch of your trash and "donate" it to them.
 
Murrmurr said:
Do you have recycling bins too? If our have any unacceptable material in them, they won’t take it.
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You`re lucky! In our County,if there are unacceptable materials in your bin,they send you a huge bill and will NOT reverse it. We have actually not had garbage service in the 30 years we have lived here-it is required inside the city limits but our homes have always been outside the city limits. Our current home is at the end of a cul de sac so all the bins are left right across from our home and people come and pick theirs up on Thursday after leaving them there on Wed. nights. It would be more convenient for us than Wes going to the landfill every week or two but he is used to it so we never changed. Now we are moving (in the process now)so we`ll see what our next home brings. We are considering a move out of state.
 
Here, everyone had to hire their own private trash service and the choices are severly limited. One company has a virtual monopoly unless you want to hire someone with a flat-bed trailer that may or may not come and who knows where they eventually dump it. My my once had one of those and the service was sporadic and once they were arrested for illegal dumping.

We also have 2 days a year which are designated "community clean-up days", usually in May and November. You can bring items to a drop-off site and pay $5 for a car and $10 for a truck no matter how much or little, but this also had limitations - no hazardous wastes including tires, paint, appliances not drained of coolant and a bunch of other things.
 
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Pinky said:
This is the first time I've heard of being billed for trash pick-up, though I'm sure that we pay through taxes.

We used to have 1 day per month where we could put out large items such as furniture.
Click to expand...
Really? We pay 50 for one bin during the winter, but we use two bins during the summer cause of yard work and it’s a 100.
Edited: that a monthly fee by the way.
 
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Aneeda72 said:
Really? We pay 50 for one bin during the winter, but we use two bins during the summer cause of yard work and it’s a 100.
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We've owned houses in different cities in Canada, and I had a house in Australia. Have never paid specifically for garbage pick up.

It would have been included in municipal taxes.
 
I live in a condominium complex. We have 3 dumpsters in various locations. People who don't live here come by at night and dump old furniture and appliances by the dumpsters. This has slowed down a bit since the police drive through the complex often. But the nerve of some people is amazing.
 

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