Bay View

garbage ordinance

As I promised I did a little legal research on the city ordinance pertaining to garbage picking. There is s specific ordinance - 79-5.5 prohibiting the removal of any item from a city garbage container except by the city employees or the person who put the item in the trash to begin with.

Penalty is pretty minor - a $25.00 ticket for a first offense and a $50.00 - $500.00 fine for subsequent offenses.

So there is a basis to call the police right in the ordinance. You don't have to put up a no trespassing sign for the law to be in effect. But you can if you want.

I really don't know what we can expect in the way of a response, but we won;t know until we try...

Lucy Cooper

not worth the headache

No one goes in my wet garbage just the cans. I think I may just bag up the aluminum cans in the summer and hang them on the fence. That could alleviate the banging on my garage. There are so many different people that I have seen go thru the recyclables that it is not worth my saying anything to the can collectors.
I am just going to try to move the drainage pipe next year if I replace the garage gutters.
Janet

By Janet

Now, I completely understand the stink thing, I have a cat and that don't smell good. I also never said I agreed with what they do. However, I also do not have the time the simply sit there and wait for someone to destroy my garbage bags. What I am saying is this, I shred the important stuff so I do not have to worry about the invasion of privacy, But I also do NOT have the time to peg the culprits, so I live with it. Tresspassing signs do no good unless, again, you can sit and watch your garbage cans. The reason I said it did not seem harmful to me is this, a torn garbage bag and a stink beats the heck out of someone breaking into our homes or cars or hurting someone in the neighborhood. I don't know. Maybe I am completely off base here but I think there are just more imporatnat things to worry about. Sorry.   

Lucy - thanks for taking the time to look into what the ordinances have to say about garbage pickers.  I agree with everyone who has said the best thing to do is to be sure you have destroyed ANYTHING, which someone could use for identity theft.  Pickers are going to dig for what they want when they want, so I try and make it easy for them if they want to take my aluminum by bagging it separately.  And I am always sure I have shredded anything that has my name or address on it.