SMALL, in Milwaukee, we don't have that trash model, rather the garbage pickup is part of our water bill as solid waste. Some LL's build the water bill into their rent Several LLs here have their tenants pay the water bill, which covers trash. I don't include it in the rent because over time, the water bill seems to contain every little thing the city can think of...lately they added street lights to the water bill.

We are having a real problem with trash here; I imagine we're not alone. An immaculate SUV will drive down the street, stop in the middle of it, open the door and drop a bag of trash in the street. It's sad. Neighbors voluntarily pick up the trash and it continues to happen.I wouldn't say it is from someone living around here, however on our afternoon walk, we passed a house in our 4 block area that was the only house on the block with condiments all over their sidewalk and the old-enough-to-know-better kids were sitting in the parked car with the car door open and trash all outside the car.

I'm concerned that even more trash would find it's way to the streets if a law like this were in effect.

My 2 rental properties are in a small city with a bag and tag program. Recycling goes in the bins you buy from the city and is free. Trash only gets picked up in the city trash bags that can be bought at the grocery or hardware store. There are 2 sizes. I think the large are around $2 a bag. They can be put in a trash container so animals/rodents don’t get them. Oversized non metal items like wood furniture, mattress’ and toilets can all get the $10 sticker put on them. There is a recycle center for yard waste and other pay to dispose of items. My biggest issue at that building is the occasional new tenant that doesn’t take their trash curbside or use bags and I am bagging it properly, dealing with stench and maggots and they know I am nit a happy landlord. They are good after that. The other building has a dumpster for trash and I leave recycle buckets in the common hallway telling them if you use it take them out and bring them in. It always falls on 1 person or 2. Right now the person doing it must if the time moved out so it’s hit or miss if they make it out weekly. The residents are lazy and don’t bother to break boxes down and just throw them in the dumpster whole vs break it down to recycle.

A tale of 3 cities.

City 1: Located in northern Michigan. Here they use the orange bags and the stickers.Separate recycle items. Tenants sit the orange bags at the curb (where they can be torn apart by raccoons, bears, and other animals). Class C tenants sometimes use these bags. Sometimes they just burn the trash in the back yard. I have added a clause in the lease to address this (with a large cleanup charge if they do it. They do it anyway.)

City 2:

Different city in northern Michigan. Here everyone in the township outside city limits gets to go to a local trash/recycle center (open 4 days a week) gets a sticker which goes on the windshield. Separate recycling and you get 7 -30 gal bags a week free. They take large items for a low $5-$10 fee. The property tax bill includes a fee for this($50/yr). It works good but there is usually a line at opening time on most days of up to 10 vehicles. Class C tenants still burn their garbage sometimes (depends on how lazy they are). In the city limits they use the big rolling 90 gallon cans and add a yearly fee to the property tax. Or you can hire a private company to collect it all for $25-$35 a month.

City 3:

Miami (Miami and Dade county are a third world area, except for the real high end areas.

As far as I remember (I escaped from there in 1996), they had the regular cans. Being a 3rd world area there was trash everywhere. Especially on the edge of town. Most every road was used as a dumping area. It cost so much to send county crews to clean it up that the county made "transfer stations" at several areas and you just went in and they had dumpsters to throw anything in for free. That helped a lot except for those who were too lazy to drive to the transfer stations. The county found it was less expensive to provide a free place to dump than to go all over picking it up on roads everywhere.

The main thing I've realized about trash disposal is that dealing with it is a psychological thing. Some people are neat and have no problems and some people are just trash. Their psychology and attitudes and success in life are all tied together. All I need to do to verify this is to look at the area where they live. Trash people are headed to or already in the slums.The neat people take control of their lives and move upward and their living areas reflect it.

So to deal with the low end "C" rentals which tend to attract the trashy people, I have had to add clauses to the leases to deal with it, including large charges for non compliance. It's just part of their psychology/mindset. If I don't do it, my places will turn into a slum and I won't allow it.

Small.... I believe this absolutely not off topic.

The city I grew up in used this model. My parents would buy a roll of bags about once every 2-3 months. 20 bags per roll, I think? It's been awhile.

They also had a once per yard "curb side pickup" program where you could put out all your old mattresses, junk appliances, couches, etc, and the city would send the big trucks around to pick up everything...and I mean everything.

Seemed to work well. I do not recall seeing nearly as many trash looking front yards as I do in my town in the older/poorer section. That said, could be my rose tinted glasses of youth since I didn't care much about such things back in the day.

Like Still Learning mentioned, we have some with this system and some where we provide dumpsters. I VERY MUCH PREFER the tagging system that is used within the city limits. It works very well -- both for residents and for us as landlords. And it certainly does encourage people to recycle since all of that is free. (While our dumpsters are FULL of clearly recyclable items that everyone is too lazy to take to the free recycling center just a few miles away.)

In our area, instead of buying/using bags, you just buy little tags that go on a trash container with a lid (so we don't really have issues with animals). They put the tag on and it gets dumped by the city who then rips the tag off in the process. Again, all recycling is free -- they have a bin that they just put out next to the tagged trash and it gets dumped for free -- you can even just pile cardboard up with it if it is too big for the bin.

When we get a new tenant, we give them a set of "starter tags" to get them going and used to it. And then instructions on where to buy more.

Again, works very well for us and I wish we had it at ALL of our rentals. I hate the dumpster drama.

-John...

Trash is also part of my water/sewer bill and I don't make tenants pay for it since it's impossible to separate out. Theoretically if the trash portion is removed than that bill shrinks. I do make them buy their own trash can. While municipal collection is good at taking everything it has to be in a clear or white bag, and you need stickers for the larger items. There is no yard trim drop off by me. Contractor trash is not picked up by the city.

Like Ken and Dee Ann I fear people will dump on lots instead. There is a little bit of dumping now. The city gets a lot of people to volunteer for the annual spring clean up, so there is some community ethic. My area as far as I'm aware of is clearly not as bad as Michigan with trash everywhere and burning trash (at least not in the city). I do think that renters have no association (or a negative association) linking where they live to having a sense of ownership in their community so they don't care about it.

Richard, we have the same problem with ripped bags when people don't put trash out in cans.

Still Learning, John sounds like PAYT has been a positive experience for your community? and people didn't wind up dumping their trash everywhere?

I've certainly had tenants in the past who would never be able to get to a store to buy special trash bags. Extra steps for anything just means whatever it is never gets done.

Our dump is "free", although that doesn't mean free because the cost is built into the property taxes. The dump is clean and well maintained and there are transfer stations that are easily located, no fee, and they are clean and orderly.

Weekly trash pick up is cheap the the city provides the wheelie bins.

There is very little recycling, just aluminum and clean cardboard, because there is no where to sell the recycle and it just ends up in the dump, anyway, so why separate it out.

Years ago, when we lived in Co Springs, each household had to contract with a private garbage hauler. Different garbage companies would be going up and down the street, on various days of the week. Recycling was collected in bright yellow bags, which were tossed in to the same truck, to be pulled out when the truck was tipped. That system worked well enough, my area didn't have problems. But, i had heard there were many people who wouldn't hire collection, instead they'd take bags of trash to dispose of at work, or at the grocery store dumpster, or ? I wouldn't say that city was more trash-littered than any other cities.

Now, my rentals are in Milwaukee. As DeeAnn mentioned, the city has several charges for solid waste on the Combined Services bill. Each household gets one large garbage cart, and can have as many recycling bins as desired. Additional garbage carts can be had for additional charge. Last time I checked, about five dollars a month. With only sfh, I do have the tenants pay the combined services bill, aka water bill. This method mostly works, but, yeah, there are people who just don't give a ______. People at stop lights will open doors and toss trash, or park in front of their home, and toss trash. Not my tenants! But I've seen it in the neighborhoods. And then, there are those people who fill and fill the garbage carts, don't haul it to the curb on trash day, then start using recycling bin for garbage. Never cleaning it up.