Price is up by a third but you have to ask for them to pick up the garbage.

Here’s the full story.

On Monday July 5th I pay $150 + to the city for water sewer and garbage. This amount is up approximately $50.00 from previous bills but I pay it without complaint. Wow I think a 30% increase in fees after an 11.5% increase in property taxes.

On the evening of Wed. July 7th my wife collects all the garbage we wash and put into blue recycling bags and the ½ bag of garbage for the black bin. Our garbage is picked up on Thursday so we are good little citizens and have it all ready for them the day before!

Later on Thursday I notice that our garbage is not picked up but everyone else’s is. I then notice the truck that picks up the green bins actually stops and the driver looks into our bin so I felt that he would let the others know and all would be fine. I forget about it until Friday afternoon.

On Friday afternoon I go to move the bin back off the alleyway. But it is full. No one picked it up. So I call the garbage “hotline”. It’s an answering machine. So I leave a message for them to come pick up my garbage.

I get a call back from someone at the City’s Garbage “Hot Line”. To there credit they did call back. She asked me when I put my garbage out and I said the same time I put out the Blue bags which, again to their credit they did pickup. Then she asked me the most stupid thing. “Do you want it picked up?” Well I was speechless, well almost. So I asked her a question. I said since I just paid the City a 30% increase in fees to pick the garbage up what did she think? Well she then asked, do you want me to issue a work order? I finally gave up and said yes. She said it might not be until Monday. So I had no choice but to say goodbye.

Now to their credit it was picked up by Friday evening, so all is fine.

I also understand that people make mistakes. But asking your paying customers if they want what they paid for is a little much. Yes I want what I paid for and I should not have to ask in the first place since, well after all I did my part. I paid you to do it.

After all that I should mention that I am all for the recycling and don’t mind paying a bit more for it but an increase of 30% is a bit much. Also I feel we are really getting ripped of by the company that the City contracts with. The previous company had better service at about half the price and were easier to work with. But I am sure it’s just the case of who knows who…. Etc.