Trash problems

Hi everyone. I'd like to get some input and suggestions on dealing with trash problems we're facing in my community.

Summary of our property:
-The project is ~300 condos, which are a mixture of stacked condos and side-by-side town-homes.
-All units have attached garages.
-Each building has between 4-12 units. The stacked condos have a two-car tandem garage. The town-homes have a side-by-side garage. In some of the stacked condo buildings, there are 12 garages lined up next to each other, with another 12 garages across from them in the adjacent building. In other words, there are 24 garages along *one driveway*.
-There is only one trash company in our area.

Summary of our trash rules:
-You can put out two large 55 gallon contractor bags plus one container of commingled recyclables. You may put out other types of bags, but the HOA gets charged more for the pick-up.
-Put the items out on the evening before pickup day (Wednesday), and must remove anything on your curb by Wednesday night.

Here are the trash problems...

1) People put trash out too early. I've seen trash out as early as Friday. They'll put the bags between their unit and their neighbors garage so we can't identify the culprit. This forces us to send violation notices to two people. Each one blames the other.

2) People are putting their trash bags inside trash cans. This adds costs to the collection. Our driveways are very narrow, so the collectors use a smaller vehicle to initially evacuate all the refuse before tossing it to the dumpster. When people use trash cans, it adds time because someone has to open/unload/replace the can, as opposed to grabbing the bag and tossing it. This is a stipulation from the trash company, so either we comply with their requirements, or pay any surcharges they tack on.

3) We have a "crazy can lady" who sweeps through our property Tuesday night. She goes through everyone's recycling container and fishes through for recyclable containers. This creates noise and annoys my neighbors. I've tried calling the cops, who have come out once or twice but she's usually gone by the time they arrive. At this point I doubt if they even come out because they probably have better things to do.

4) People dumping "stuff"... mattresses, chairs, TV's, etc. in random places. I'd love to install security cameras, but we're in the middle of construction defect litigation with the developer, and one of the major claims is defects in the stucco application. I don't think it would be good if we were to drill into the stucco to mount cameras. Our trial date is in early 2015, so we would need to wait a year.

Appreciate any help... this has been a nightmare!!

We eliminated can pick and put in dumpsters. Plus had our own recycle bins. This was done with another local trash provider. Although you may check with your current one to see if that can be done. We had 2 on each side of the hood. People could drive up and drop off. Our biggest issue was narrow streets where the trucks had issues driving through. Make sure trucks can fit.

Steve - As the President of the Board, I've been comfortable firing contractors that deliver unacceptable performance. If I could fire our trash supplier, I would've done that a long time ago. I pushed our management company to find another provider, but was told that none exists. That is why my OP stated that we only have one supplier. There is no competition, so the service quality is low, the price is high, and we have limited recourse if additional fees are imposed. It sucks.

Like I said in my OP, some of the driveways are *narrow*. Imagine a narrow driveway with 12 garage doors along each side, and each door is one-car wide. Each of those doors represents one unit, which can house up to 5 people. That's a lot of trash. If everyone used cans, you're adding 24 cans to an already narrow driveway where people have difficulty entering/exiting their garages already. People are bad drivers. I don't need complaints about someone backing into/over someone else's trash can.

Cans would add a lot of time to the collection, and this will add to cost. Finally, the garbage people habitually "toss" emptied recycling containers back to the ground in the general direction of where they found it. Can you imagine the mess this would cause with trash cans? On Wednesday night, no one would be able to enter their garages without having to clear away several of their neighbors cans.

The project is a very high density development. The dumpster is located on the far south-east corner of the project. Without going into the specifics of the property layout, I can tell you that rebuilding or relocating the dumpster would *extremely* cost-prohibitive. It would be cheaper to install a highly advanced network of security cameras on all the roof-tops and pay a steep monitoring fee... which isn't in the budget.

I didn't want this post to get too long, so I'll cut to the summary.

-We only have one trash supplier (as stated in my OP)
-Trash cans would create additional problems with several of the projects narrow driveways
-Relocating the dumpster is cost prohibitive.

Taking a mgmt company's word in regards to vendors is dangerous. I would look on my own. Open a phone book. They may have side deals and just tell you there is no one else.



Why do you have trash pickup and dumpsters? Why cant the people take thier own trash to the dumpster and get rid of trash pickup completely?

We're in northern California - SF Bay Area.

Instead of large dumpsters located throughout property, could you strategically place groups of trash and recycle cans (maybe 2 each for trash and 2 each for recycle of the larger wheeled containers) throughout the community? Maybe there's some open space or sidewalk areas that would accommodate these groups of cans permanently in these locations. You could fence/landscape around them to try and improve the appearance a bit. Maybe get cans that aren't the fluorescent blue or green to also camouflage them a bit. And possibly have trash pickup on more than one day to ease trash congestion on any single day? This is sort of a middle-of-the-road solution to each home needing its own trash and recycling containers or needing to place large dumpsters in several areas (which you've indicated isn't possible anyway).

And as someone mentioned, don't rely solely on the management company. Do some research yourself. I find it tough to believe that you only have a single vendor in the SF Bay area.

PA,

My 2 cents worth - nothing much different from what others have posted - except I would brainstorm the problem, first leaving cost out of the equation (within reason).

Even though some solutions might cost more, you might find that your residents would be willing to pay more.

1. You wrote: Our driveways are very narrow, so the collectors use a smaller vehicle to initially evacuate all the refuse before tossing it to the dumpster.

So you already have a solution in place to get the trash and recycle from “close by the Condo Units” to the dumpster.

2. I once read something like – if you want to know where to put sidewalks – notice where people tend to walk, and build them there.

Your Residents have found spots to put “bags between their unit and their neighbor’s garage”. Perhaps you can utilize those areas. Also your Residents are telling you that they want to put their trash inside Trash Cans, so you may want to allow that.

3. Because you are having problems with people putting trash our early, it seems some residents consider this a hardship and/or a nuisance – or perhaps forget what day of the week it is. So they would probably welcome a solution, as much as you would.

But, you need to explain if they want convenience, they are going to have to pay for it.

4 We have trash and recycle each picked up separately on different days, but both, once a week. Our trash and recycle hauler keeps pretty much to schedule usually morning sometime between 9 and Noon. That helps.

But as already suggested, perhaps you need additional trash and/or recycle runs to the dumpster, two or more times per week in between.

5. We have a number of “Trash Sheds” completely enclosed, but ventilated, some attached to garage ends, spread throughout, among the buildings.

These sheds are not very big, contain no Trash Cans, so plastic bags of trash can be simply be thrown in. Because they hold no Trash Cans, even a small shed can hold quite a bit. And Residents can put trash in when convenient.

6. In addition, we have a few additional separate sheds that are for Recycle only. But in those sheds, we do have large Recycle Bins (cans). And we have rules like, all large cardboard boxes must be broken down, flattened, and put behind the Bins, not in the Bins. So we do not run out of space. Again it allows Residents to get rid of Recycle when convenient.

7. Where I lived in the past, we had small wooden enclosures just large enough to hold Large Trash Cans at various locations. Some were built to hold two (2) Trash Cans, others were built to hold four (4) Trash Cans. Each of the cans and lids, which were supplied by the Association, had the Unit Number written on it. If one had a large amount of trash – we were suppose to use only “our” can - we were allowed to put a trash bag alongside “just before pickup”.

Is there a possibility you might be able to find spots for some enclosures? That way the trash cans “have a home” and it is the Trash Hauler’s responsibility to put the cans back.

8. As to “People dumping "stuff"... mattresses, chairs, TV's, etc.” There you have to put your foot down. That also happens in my Association on occasion.

What I do is to take a few photos, and hope someone sees me taking the pictures. I also put a large written note on the item, saying something like “Who left this here? If someone does not “own up”, we then write about it in a Newsletter.

We also remind Residents, that they need to discuss disposal of old items when they have new ones delivered. Some tradespeople seem to think that because a Condo Association has trash pick-up, it is OK to leave the old item behind.

We also will make “special arrangements” with the trash hauler for big item pick-up, if we are asked. We have found that most Residents are willing to pay a one time charge, to have the mattress, or whatever, taken away.

9. The "crazy can lady" – ask the Police Department for suggestions, ask your Residents to watch for her, get a license plate number, etc. Maybe a Police Officer, might agree to “moonlight” to try to catch her.