Arsewipe garbage men

[J. Clarke]

Cleaned out the garage over the weekend, tossed all the excess baggage into a trash bag, tossed it in the trash. Well, found a green sticker on top of the trash barrel (which the town delivered and made me pay for, so that they hydraulic garbage can lifter on the truck could be used to save money) that said "too heavy, more than 35 pounds, dirt".

Seems to me that if a fat old man can lift the thing into the wheeled barrel and roll it to the curb, the professional garbage men with their hydraulic lift shouldn't have any difficulty putting it in the truck. And what do they _expect_ to be in the garbage but "dirt".

I guess what I need to do is take a video of me removing every item from the trash, washing it, putting it back into separate bags, weighing them to ensure that they are under 35 pounds each, the response of the garbage men, and then send the whole thing to the local TV station.

[RonB]

Guess we are in another world. We live in a rural community and when we started building our house a couple of years ago I asked the trash guy what they would or would not take. Short answer was, "No tires or pallets. But if you cut a pallet in half we will take it." We have put overloaded trash carts near the street that were nearly invisible because of the mountain of other stuff leaned against it, including construction debris.. Never missed a pickup. However, one day, when we did pretty much loaded the cart to the point where I could barely get it to the street, I heard some grumbling. Both the trash dumper and driver were struggling to get it up on the truck dump rack. When finished one of the guys "punted" the empty cart up the drive."

Never complained to us though.

RonB

[J. Clarke]

One time I had more trash than would fit in the can. Found a note--"all trash must be in can".

Didn't used to be this way.

[FrozenNorth]

They now don't take ours unless the lid on the can actually closes. Thankfully I don't see any major renovations in our future, they took nearly anything (cut to a reasonable size), not that long ago.

[Father Haskell]

The proper christmas "gift" goes a long way toward improving your garbage service. I recommend a $20 bottle of booze, or a case of cheap beer.

[FrozenNorth]

That may work where you live but here, we seem to get a different crew every week.

[J. Clarke]

When the garbage collector starts getting shirty about taking the trash, it's time to water the tree IMO. The government needs to be reminded that it is _not_ the boss.

But how to go about it?

[Ed Pawlowski]

"RonB" wrote

I'd have punted it into the middle of the street to get run over. Under the circumstances, I'd have tipped the guys a few bucks.

[Casper]

Where I live in Ohio, it's private trash companies and they do as they please. Fortunately, they have yet to give me any grief.

However, I've had several friends given multiple problems with the trash. Should it happen to me, I already resolved some time ago to simply take everything they don't up to the local center and leave it there. If they won't come to me, I'll go to them and they can deal with it that way, since there is no other option for trash that's not compostable. `Casper

[willshak]

They'd rather have the $20.

[John Grossbohlin]

I've taken to weighing the cans and putting a big note on top listing the weight when it is at all questionable..., e.g., drywall scraps. I started doing this is in response to a series of newspaper articles and letters to the editor complaining about how the DPW refuses to pick stuff up -- mostly as a green-flu action (I think they wear green). I've never had a problem with stuff left at the curb or with getting unwarranted "warning letters" by taking this action... it keeps everybody honest.

John

[willshak]

John Grossbohlin wrote the following:

Before we had the hydraulic garbage trucks, the cans and such had to lifted into the truck by the helpers. This included anything left outside of the cans. Now, with hydraulic trucks, and only the driver present, the stuff outside of the can would not be picked up, unless special arrangements are made beforehand. Of course, if you can stuff a body into the large provided can, who would know?