I've really had it right up to here (pointing to the top of my ever greying, ever balding head) with trash services here in Glynn County and the City of Brunswick.
In a little over three days I already have trash overflowing out of my ears and coming out of my butt here at the new house on our little island (located in unincorporated Glynn County), and I also have a virtual landfill on the unpaved ally side of my property over in Brunswick that the head of the Brunswick Sanitation Department has been promising to remove since May.
The problem seems to revolve around government mandated monopolies--in one case one hired by Glynn County, and the second actually operated by the City of Brunswick.
Since Glynn County is the entity most recently to cause their property tax owners to fall victim to this
It seems that a few years ago the County Commissioners noticed there is a bit of a problem with dumping of household garbage and other refuse on private property and along the highways and other "public" property.
Rather than enforcing the existing littering and dumping laws on the members of the "public" which were guilty of causing the problem, the elected County
They did this by hiring a private company to do the trash collection at homes and businesses which did not have dumpsters or other means of refuse disposal already in place, in the process adding the cost of the service to the land/property owner's annual property tax bill. (Our condo had dumpsters and it's own service personnel on site so we were exempt from this mandate.)
No if's, and's, or but's, about it, now if you own a house in Glynn County you will have government mandated trash service...even if your house is unoccupied, burns down, or due to it's condition, is otherwise un-occupyable.
Of course there was a huge public outcry and lots of gnashing of teeth, but in the end the government won out and, as a delayed result, today I had my first experience with Southland Waste Systems and their rocket scientist employees.
Yesterday I found from out my neighbor that Monday was "trash day" here on my street and further, that I had to make sure that my company/county supplied trashcan was not over filled--the lid had to close.
No problem...so far so good...
I had a trashcan sitting beside my garage when the moving truck drove up on Saturday, and we'd produced lots of trash since then so I seemed set to take advantage of the service that our landlord was paying for.
Only problem was, what my well intended neighbor did not tell me was that my "curbside" service was not actually at our house's "curbside."
Imagine that?
Oh yeah..the GOVERNMENT is involved, and that means that the meanings of ordinary words are never what you would normally expect them to be.
Evidently, by "curbside" service here in Glynn County, they mean some "curbside" other than MY curbside--a curbside that their giant truck can drive up to and pick up the can with some kind of manipulator arm to do the dumping with.
Any way, a little after noon today I noticed that the truck driver and his assistant busied themselves spending at least five minutes moving back and forth outside my driveway entrance avoiding my trashcan, even having the extra man actually exit the air conditioned cab of the truck to pick up and empty a few recycling containers, but when the dust settled and Pat came home from shopping we found that OUR TRASHCAN WAS STILL FULL.
No note, no gentle reminder, no nothing, just a can full of trash from moving and another week to wait for the next scheduled trash service.
Here's what I'm going to do.
First I'm calling in to the local Radio talk show at 7 AM tomorrow morning to tell my story.
Next I'm calling my county commissioner.
Of course all I expect to hear is lame excuses and promises to do better in the future, but in the end I will probably be told that it is my fault for not asking my landlord how far down the block and on which side of the street to place my trashcan.
I vaguely remember hearing talk show callers in the past complaining about having to have their trashcans 12 feet (or some other random number) from mailboxes, telephone poles, other trash cans) but it didn't occur to me until the damage was done.
What total bullshit.
I live on a cul-de-sac with a one way 12 foot wide strip of asphalt (which badly needs repaving by the aforementioned "county officials") that wraps in and out around giant Live Oak Trees and islands of vegetation.
My house apparently sits in a position where a $7 per hour employee would have to actually exit the air conditioned cab of the 500' long garbage truck in order to retrieve my trash can sitting adjacent to the road anywhere on the frontage.
God forbid that Southland Waste Systems should employ some smaller trucks or hire people to grab hold of an errant but innocently misplaced trashcan every now and then on some of the older narrow inner island streets here on St. Simons.
As is typical with any solution provided by the government, it's ONE SIZE FITS ALL, DAMMIT.
And is also typical with government, the customer is NEVER RIGHT.
Do I have a second on that motion?
All in favor?
Those Opposed?
The yeas have it...
(Next on my agenda...the City of Brunswick's abysmal "
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