The Observation Deck

Trash day is Thursday on my street, so I get to look at these piles of garbage for another 2 days. Anyone else having this sort of problem? It's a fairly regular occurrence on my street. This doesn't look good.

Does the city even pick up old tires?

No they don't pick up tires. Did you call the refuse department?

Hi - The first picture is the house I rent. (it's a double)

My landlord doesn't live in Lakewood although he claims he used to live here about 10 years ago. He always comes on Sunday to clean out.

It's very very embarrassing when he does this!!!

No I don't believe the city picks up old tires. This is all junk that has been in our basement since I lived here a year ago and he still has 3 refrigerators and a stove to clean out. I think the city finally got on him about all this junk and that is why he is cleaning out.

Sorry about the mess!!!!
Very very embarrassed by it!!!



How do we get the city on these absentee landlords about setting the trash out like this???
(Especially when the city is the one who is telling them to clean up.)

I agree this is ugly and I believe the refuse rules posted by Lakewood even say to not put refuse out prior to day before collection:

Normal Collection Hours: Monday through Friday between the hours of 6:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. All debris intended for collection should be readily accessible, properly contained, and available for collection by 6:30 a.m. on the day of collection. Please do not place debris on the curb earlier than 6:00 p.m. the night before your day of collection. (Ord. 521.

I was actually in a similar discussion with my girlfriend on Sunday, she was going to put our lawn refuse on the tree lawn at that time... I told her no way and we carried it into the garage until refuse collection day on Thursday.

Here's the page for Lakewood Refuse and Recycling:

http://www.ci.lakewood.oh.us/pw_refuse.html

Linda Summers wrote:How do we get the city on these absentee landlords about setting the trash out like this???
(Especially when the city is the one who is telling them to clean up.)

Only thing to make sense is fines, fines, fines.

Total bottom line thing.

Ask Judge Carroll. he tries to be resonable but ends up having to fine landlords. I was in court watching a guy who had 4 units in Lakewood go without fire and CO2 detectors for over a year.

He mentioned to the Judge he had been busy.

$250 later, the man said he would get them in today!

FWIW


.

Since there is an ordiance, the landlord should be fined....call to complain. If the city doesn't know it's out there, they can't do anything about it. However, I wish it were that simple. How can we actually make sure an ordinance is enforced?? I guess the squeeky wheel gets the oil...but boy does it get tiring!

The sad thing is it probably won't do any good, but at least you can give it a shot.

The renters in the double across the street from us vacated just a few days ago ... leaving behind a variety of old furniture, which the landlord is tossing out onto the treelawn. However, he did this yesterday, AFTER the garbage was picked up, so we get to have all this old furniture sit there for a week until it's finally picked up!

and more embarrassingly, the couch they tossed out is the same one my wife and I tossed out about 4 months ago, after we got a new one. I put it out on the treelawn the night before garbage day ... and it was gone within the hour (lot of trash recycling going on around here, I've noticed). Now I see where it went!

Do the police or other city folks ever go around looking for stuff like this and then citing the landlords?

Chris, call the refuse department -- (216) 529-6883 -- with the address and explain the situation. If you ask nicely, they may come out and do a special pickup earlier than next Monday. Let me know if you run into any trouble, but they've always been very helpful in my experience.

Kevin Butler
(Ward 1 Council)

Dee Krupp wrote:How can we actually make sure an ordinance is enforced??

Maybe the Mayor will come answer that for us...it seems to be a rather common question.

For all the whining and hand wringing, did it ever occur to any of you to CALL THE REFUSE DEPARTMENT?

This could be taken care of with 2 minutes of your time. Instead, people will post on boards, cluck and complain, and blame the mayor.

When I had a neighbor move out mid-week and leave a pile of trash I called the refuse department and they sent a truck out to pick up the tree lawn. DONE!

The Refuse Dept. is usually very good about responding to phone calls.

I have heard former summer employees talk about how "they don't care" but I've never seen evidence of that.

They usually get on the radio a.s.a.p. and the problems are taken care of before everybody heads in for the day.

Since their day begins early, it can also end early, so it's possible to get the answering machine.

I have never had an experience where they didn't respond as quickly as they could.

252-4322.

The Refuse Department does a fantastic job and when they are called they always respond quickly. The problem here is with people who consistently leave trash on their tree-lawn days, sometimes a full week before trash pick-up. Residents should not have to call the Refuse Dept. every week to have them come out and take care of these problems. I am certain that every special trip the Refuse Dept. makes to clean up after some inconsiderate person (or business) that doesn't care about what day trash pickup day is, costs the city money.

Call the non-emergency police number and let them know the problem.

Grace O'Malley wrote:For all the whining and hand wringing, did it ever occur to any of you to CALL THE REFUSE DEPARTMENT?

This could be taken care of with 2 minutes of your time. Instead, people will post on boards, cluck and complain, and blame the mayor.

When I had a neighbor move out mid-week and leave a pile of trash I called the refuse department and they sent a truck out to pick up the tree lawn. DONE!

there's days where you read my mind.
I was just talking about this with a friend of mine yesterday.

what's next, a trash pick-up levy?

Rick Uldricks wrote:The Refuse Department does a fantastic job and when they are called they always respond quickly. The problem here is with people who consistently leave trash on their tree-lawn days, sometimes a full week before trash pick-up. Residents should not have to call the Refuse Dept. every week to have them come out and take care of these problems. I am certain that every special trip the Refuse Dept. makes to clean up after some inconsiderate person (or business) that doesn't care about what day trash pickup day is, costs the city money.

That was my thought reading your original post. It's not about having the city come and get the stuff today.....why should they have to make umteen extra number of pickups in a week because somebody isn't obeying the city's ordinance? And it most certainly is costing the city extra money....our money!