OT. Slower Mail Delivery

"New" doesn't really have much to do with it. My daughter lives in a

It's not the age

$10/$25 per what?

WM will take big items also. Always have. We've always had to call in "big" items (bigger than 1 person could throw in the truck) but now - because of the use of the "claw" - *anything* that won't fit in the can has to be called in.

Month

I have no idea how yard waste works, except for huge bulk stuff like when you cut down a tree. That's a monthly pick-up by the town, spring through fall.

For >35 years I've been dumping my grass clippings and leaves (lots of leaves) down the cliff-like hill across the road from my house. Sometimes it's just a few rolling garbage cans full, sometimes it's a few "drag a large tarp full" trips.

There's about 4 houses that do that. By the time winter comes around, the pile of leaves, garden debris, grass, etc. is a decent size. It's never an eyesore because no one can see it unless you walk 20 or so feet off the road and into the woods and then look down the hill. By spring, nature has done what nature does and we all start anew.

How did you screwed? You bought Forever stamps at the current price.

What does "The clerk even said they are all Forever stamps" have to do with it?

It depends on the contract. We both have WM. Across the river from me they have Toters (65 gallon wheeled cans) and they only dump them. The regular pickup has to be in the Toter like your deal. Over here it is the regular old pickup. They talked about it here but the residents pushed back.

I screwed myself by not buying last month

In my last house the added a reader device for electric and they had to drive down the street to read the electric meter but had to walk to the outside of the house for the water meter. Water was quarterly.

Here, it all goes to a local transmitter. I can check my electric use on line every day. Gives me kw used,cost, estimated bill for the month.

Years ago in Philadelphia, a meter reader came into the house to read the meter every month. That was 40 years ago and I imagine they changed.

Yard waste (horticulture) here is once a week. You can tie it in bundles, put it in a big paper bag or in a can. (No plastic) Large pieces can just be left by the side of the road if they are less than

As long as the owner doesn't care, I guess that is fine.

They will put them in old neighborhoods tho and that was his point. Our whole county switched as fast as they could plug them in. The guys were doing one about every 2 minutes here. I don't think my power was off 30 seconds. Cut the seal, pull off the ring, pull one meter, plug in the other replace the ring and snap on a seal. One guy was driving, the other swapping meters. They had a girl with a tablet, along with them, tracking the numbers. I think they were all college students.

FPL has the hub on a pole next door. The meter talks to this hub

We had a fair number of crunchy-granola Ann Arborites who refused the meter. They were afraid of the "negative waves" or some bullshit. I always wondered how many of those fools had a cell phone.

Cindy Hmailton

I think there is something to it. I get up every night to pee and it is probably the electric meter sending out negative waves. Pretty sure that is it.

We have no poles, everything underground. There is a fenced in pad with assorted electric stuff and looks like antenna. I'll have to stop and take a peek some time.

But they will install new meters in an antiquated neighborhood.

I guess it's how one interprets what you wrote, but I think we are on the same page anyway. It's all good.

I wouldn't argue if they switched ours out for electronic, but my guess is that they don't want to deal with all the old plumbing in our area. If they screw something up while changing the meter, they'd be on the hook. With thousands of meters to change, you know that there will be multiple expensive problems.

Broken/leaky shutoffs, rusty galvanize pipes, etc. I don't *think* that they are allowed to cause a problem, shut off the water to the house and say "Call us back after you get that fixed."

I was actually talking about the water meter.

Switching those isn't going to take 2 minutes and the situations and problems that they might run into is scary to even think about.

Point was that AFAIK, America first Trump didn't even try to do anything about it. This has been a problem going back decades and getting worse. The guy who first started getting vocal about it was back then, some guy from NJ who invented some cup holder for cars as I recall. Soon after he started selling them for ~$8, somebody in China had illegally copied it and was selling it here for less, with free shipping. That kind of shipping has gotten worse, the Chinese can send a small item here and only charge $1.25 including shipping. While if I try to send something to China, lowest cost available to me is ~$15, which is USPS first class package service. It varies from maybe $11 to the lowest cost country, to $17 or more for the highest cost. I'm sure volume shippers can do better, but you and I don't have access to it, nor do small business shippers. Yet there are all kinds of sellers, big and small on Ebay shipping from China for less than a buck.

Yup water meters are more complicated to install. They are still putting in the old mechanical meters here tho. It is the government and they are not famous for innovation or efficiency. I ended up with a meter from when my wife was building houses. They went to Ferguson (plumbing supply) and bought one because the county said they couldn't get them and it is illegal to use un metered water from a fire hydrant. The county still wouldn't let them do it in spite of the fact that this was exactly the same meter they said they couldn't get but they did find one right away (it was right there in their truck) so it still worked out. She ended up with a new meter with 270 gallons on it. I hooked it up to my water line going into the house from my well. It gives me an idea of how much water I will use if they ever get around to putting us on county water.

It is a hard sell politically because it ends up being another government handout and most people like free stuff. Perhaps if someone explained it better it might fly but people love that $1.50 widget from China with free shipping. They don't understand it isn't "free" the tax payer is paying the bill. OTOH half of America doesn't pay those taxes and that makes it a non-starter right away.

From that dubiously attributed Alexander Tyler essay

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."