I'm Ticked At My Garbage Co. UPDATE

pearl · 11-08-2005, 08:41 PM

I'm ticked at my garbage company ( they call themselves a "sanitary company" ) and I'm not going to take it anymore.

I got my bill this afternoon and low and behold there is a $5.00 up charge on it this month. Can't figure out why so I call Waste Management up to inquire. They tell me that sometime during last month on pick up day my lid on my garbage can wasn't completely shut and had an over flow of garbage in it justifying an additional $5.00 charge

.

At the sound of this I about blow a cork but stay cool long enough to ask to speak to a manager. Tony Soprano gets on the phone and in his New Jersey accent tells me they have instituted the policy to add a charge for cans that have an over flow. I tell him just send me a bigger can. Tony then tells me that will be an additional $10 a month. My final comment was I'll get back to you.

Now a couple of things to keep in mind. You can't tell your garbage company to pack sand because they own a franchised area so I can't change companies. I have always been a model customer giving my driver a bottle of Jack Daniels each Christmas for dealing with fish carcases all year. And I always leave my can in a spot where it can be easily accessed.

Thought about it for a while this evening so as I went out to the street to take my can out for tomorrows pick up.

I threw half my garbage into the neighbors can leaving me only a half a can of garbage for the early morning pick up. I'll be calling Tony tomorrow to ask for my $5.00 bucks back :grin:since I only have half the can filled this week :grin: Then I'm off to Tillamook for a couple of salmon carcases.

Hope they come around to my way of thinking.

Pearl - Out

ampersat · 11-08-2005, 08:53 PM

I have no problem with jumping up and down on the contents of my cans as needed to get that lid closed (they've pulled that business on me too). The poor yard debris guy must have spent five minutes trying to get all the leaves out of my can this morning (my office window is right on the street). My favorite is filling the can with unsplittable wood. No matter how full the truck is it still hits with a "KaThong!" in the bottom of the truck.

Fast Water · 11-08-2005, 08:54 PM

Yeah, a couple putrified (liquid) Coho

should send a strong message.

Do make sure that it was your regular guy that reported the over filled can.

Cool Texan · 11-08-2005, 08:58 PM

Amp, I thought I was the only guy that did that.

Pearl, file your complaint with Catch And Eat....he's reimbursing people back this month for things like this.

BCF · 11-09-2005, 05:08 AM

Pearl , Pearl ,Pearl

Do I need to remind you that Tony Soprano moves garbage for a living".

He doesn't actually care what you are going to do. Think Philadelphia garbage worker strike. Remember piles of trash on the street.

Wouldn't it just be easier to cut those scrap pieces of drywall down to sizes that would fit into the trash bin?

Or maybe nail em up in the garage.

Good Luck BCF out

Pete · 11-09-2005, 05:21 AM

WM sure do find ways to get you ... over weight, overloaded, extra bag ... it never ends. I found that by renting their can for $2 a month I can have a 75 pound load, instead of a 30 pound load in the same size can. I'm pretty good at jamming that sucker full, and if there's any extra space, I fill it with recyclable yard debris to avoid paying the extra $8 per bag for leaf removal.

Abalone · 11-09-2005, 06:25 AM

Cancel your service.

We cancelled ours in September when my Union went on Strike and have not resumed it. You would be amazed how easy it is to get rid of the stuff.

Clean paper gets burned in the Woodstove a small amount at a time.

The cans and glass get recycled.

The food scraps go into the Garden.

The hard part is the plastic.
It goes back where it came from. The Stores garbage can.
Or we avoid plastics in the first place.

Yes ! We cancelled our Gas Service also. I love burning Wood anyhow so that's that.

As far as the garbage is concerned I always considered it a waste. Doing things this way forces everyone to be more conservative.

Now if I could just figure out how to unhook the toilet..

Just kidding !

ampersat · 11-09-2005, 06:35 AM

I'm having a Simpson's flashback moment:

sandman · 11-09-2005, 06:39 AM

Quote:

WM sure do find ways to get you ... over weight, overloaded, extra bag ... it never ends. I found that by renting their can for $2 a month I can have a 75 pound load, instead of a 30 pound load in the same size can. I'm pretty good at jamming that sucker full, and if there's any extra space, I fill it with recyclable yard debris to avoid paying the extra $8 per bag for leaf removal.

Pete,Let me get this right,you put garbage in your recycle can to save you the over the top charge??That's a great idea!

Do you put some leaves on the top so they don't see the garbage on the bottom?

This was just a joke to give pete a bad time

rock bottom · 11-09-2005, 07:42 AM

Man Pearl your a nice guy for giving your garbage man a bottle every christmas for dealing with the smell. I dont know about your trucks but ours out here in hickville have the arms that extend out and pick up the can so our guy doesnt have to deal with it. I have also been dinged with an overweight charge(for my garbage can) and it irritates the heck out of me. I have a good buddy that I used to run around with before marriage and kids that owns a garbage co and at 35 he has more money than alot of us will ever see.

SlipKnot · 11-09-2005, 07:56 AM

Roughly 15 years ago, I got into a [petunias!] match with my garbage company after the City of Portland went from free market garbage service to the communist they are.

The new company would not allow us to use the garbage cans that we had always had and issued us fancy new roller cans because the new policy was that you had to roll the can out to the curb.

Long story long, right after the new garbage company took over their monopoly we had a huge windstorm in Portland that happened to be on garbage day. All of the fancy new garbage cans in the neighborhood blew all over the place. It was like a game of musical chairs and all the neighbors went out and picked up a garbage can. At the end of the day when I got home, there wasn't any left on the street!

So, I called up the garbage company, explained the situation and asked for another can. They said, sure, for $150.00, we will bring you another can. Well, at that time, I was really [petunias!] poor and told them there was no way that I was paying $150.00 for a new garbage can and that I would be forced to use the good old can that I already had. They informed me that they would not pick up the garbage unless it was in their can. Well, you can imagine what my response was.

All of these fancy new cans had large identification numbers on them so I said to them, just give me the number of my can and I will go find it in the neighborhood. They said that they never bothered to track the numbers and assign them to each customer. I said, well, how am I supposed to know if my garbage can didn't get taken by the neighbor, blah, blah, blah.

So, I started putting my garbage in my old can and took it out to the curb on garbage day hoping that the driver just wouldn't care and would pick it up anyway. Well, they cared and refused to pick up my garbage.

It was an epic battle that involved letters to the City, letters to the garbade company, etc. The bottom line was that they refused to pick up my garbage until I paid the extortion fees they were trying to charge me. In the end, I lost, they won. My garbage piled up to the point the City threatened to fine me and my neighbors threatened to burn my house down.

I was bitter for years over that but then I realized that it was a great learning experience. It taught me a lot about free market economies versus monopolies. It also taught me alot about the City of Portland and how crooked they really are.

Good luck Pearl!

StickFish · 11-09-2005, 08:31 AM

I hear ya Pearl - I used to live over by you and the killer was the charge they added on to the bill cause I lived on top of a hill - Taylor's Ferry and 56 with about a million other people. They added a $5 surcharge for extra fuel to drive up there - can you imagine a couple thousand people paying $5 a month just to drive up the hill.

I called and asked if people who lived down hill got a fuel discount

These fees come about from PUC meetings that we don't go to and hence don't know about till we read our bills. Kind of like the gas companies $5 a month statement charge - I used to shut my service down in April and start it again in October. Then I noticed the fee to restart the service. So the next year I didn't tell them and shut the furnace off - I get a bill for $5 to tell me I didn't owe them anything but the $5 statement fee - happened to equal the startup fee for the number of months I didn't use gas - just can't win for loosing.

Pearl - hand deliver the JD this year and bring one for his buddie a couple frozen salmon filets and work it out with the driver - JD and fish = no extra charges - worked for me!

mtpar · 11-09-2005, 08:39 AM

Pearl

Does this mean there will be a extra bottle of JD around Christmas time?

I could be encouraged to help dispose of if you need help.

Good Luck

mtpar

CATCH AND EAT · 11-09-2005, 09:40 AM

Pearl, I canceled my business service with WM for these exact measures you are noting here. They had the gall to try to charge me $140 more than any competitor out there.

FLUSH!!!!!!!!

6wapiti6 · 11-09-2005, 10:25 AM

Don't get me started on those guys...

First for 2 years they showed up between 10 and 11am, then all of a suddden out of the blue I hear the truck at 6:30 am...nobody in our neighborhood puts there stuff out the night before. That morning all of us were out there in next to nothing tryig to get stuff on the curb. I swear I could see the drivers having a good laugh.

Second, not to long ago we got charged $10 for a "heavy" can? I called and asked if they weigh them and the guy says "No, it's arbitrary. Up to the guy thats picking up that day...!"

I then asked what constitues a "heavy " can...he had no answer. He agreed to take the charge off, but asked if we could keep the weight down? What joke..

Abalone · 11-09-2005, 10:31 AM

Do what I do ! Find some orange garbage bags some place, put your garbage in them and throw them out the window along the freeways on the way to work in the morning The county will pick them up for free.

Snakebite · 11-09-2005, 10:51 AM

Screw the garbage company! I used to spend $9 a month on garbage pickup. I now have three cans, fill 'em up once every three months and it only costs me $6 at the dump. Saves me $84 a year

Jennie@ifish · 11-09-2005, 11:00 AM

Reduce your garbage load and do all of us a favor. :smile:

Don't hit me, but it's true! We as Americans have so much garbage, and where is it all going?

Reduce, reuse, recyle!

(A child of the 60s)

Jennie@ifish · 11-09-2005, 11:01 AM

My favorite quote on this thread is this one:

Quote:

As far as the garbage is concerned I always considered it a waste.

LOL

TundraIII · 11-09-2005, 11:43 AM

I too have been charged this extra fee a few times. If you are buying your garbage man a bottle of whiskey every Christmas....it aint getting you anywhere. This isnt New York City where that kind of thing gets you preferential treatment.
I cant tell you how many times I've been out to pull my garbage can back up the driveway after garbage day to find my can still half full....hence next weeks overcharge cause I couldnt fit the that weeks garbage in there. Drivers must get a bonus for adding the extra fee.

elkstopper · 11-09-2005, 02:25 PM

You could always move to Oregon City, my lid is hardly ever shut and I don't get charged extra.

I know they have a weight restriction, but it has never been an issue and I've had some heavy ones with some of the remodeling projects that have went on at the house.

Several times, I have also put an extra can out and have not been charged :grin:.

It must be that we are so close to the transfer station, afraid we will take are own in.

Maybe they don't like J.D., might try some of the brew that you have stockpiled

pearl · 11-09-2005, 03:01 PM

Update !

Per slipknots advice I called Tony back up at Waste Management this afternoon to talk in further detail about my $5.00 up charge.
He repeated to me that the driver reported an overflowing can or and extra load out side the can. He could not tell me which it was. Advantage me.
I then asked him to give me the number on the can that is in question and he admitted that they don't have records of those numbers. I then asked how can he prove it was my can because their are 12 cans on my road. Case closed

.

They will refund my $5.00 on next months bill and now I have enough $$$ to buy a pack of herring.

Pearl Out

p.s. I'm going to wait it out next week for the driver to show to see if he can be bribed, I mean come around to my way of thinking

It's his choice - Old number seven at Christmas or sleeping with the fishes :grin:.

legal_layover · 11-09-2005, 03:24 PM

Do I see an Ifish garbage disposal network in the future? Someone have an old starcraft on a trailor they can pull around on a route. Half the price of the monopoly guys?