- Joined
- Jun 30, 2016
- Messages
- 4,672
Republic Services killed my neighbor... or at least made us think she had died.
Last Saturday, while mowing my yard, I caught a whiff of the unmistakable smell of death. The rancid sort of stench that entices buzzards and warns of decomposition.
My neighbor has a number of cats on her property, well cared for from what I can tell, but every once in a while one tangles with a dog or finds itself under a rolling wheel and dies. It's unfortunate, but it happens. So I didn't pay the smell much attention.
Until an hour or two later when the neighbors from the other side of her house knocked on our door. They were inquiring as to when the last time we'd seen her was. Come to think of it, it's been a few days. It seems the rancid stench I'd noticed earlier was permeating their back room and they feared the worst.
Immediately stories of grandchildren expecting the smell fresh baked cookies, but blindsided by decomposing hydrocarbons and the sight of grandma's bloated, cat nibbled corpse come to mind. What a lovely Saturday.
We knocked on the door and got no answer. The car was in the drive, but there were no signs of life inside. Fantastic.
We're not the sort of neighbors that have each other's spare keys; I don't even know her name to be honest. So we had to call the SAPD for a wellbeing check.
I love these guys. They were here within minutes. They set about poking around the house, trying to determine whether or not they needed to gain entry to her home.
Luckily, toward the end of their search one of the officers opened her trash can at the end of the driveway. Now I know this seems like an obvious place to have checked for a smell, but given that the can had been out since Wednesday and our trash was picked up on Thursday I didn't even consider it as the source.
I don't know what foul manner of thing is in that can, but we can rest knowing that our elderly neighbor is probably away with family rather than becoming ultra-budget fancy feast.
Now, this all took place on Saturday. I called Republic on Monday morning to have the missed can picked up. I was told, after a great long while spent on hold, that they couldn't do anything because it wasn't my trash. I wasn't the account holder.
It's a death can full of foul smelling filth that you failed to pick up as you've been contracted to do and is now engulfing the neighborhood in a cloud of awful, but you won't pick it up because it's not my trash? Fine. I told them to pick it up against my account and I'd move the can in front of my house. That apparently was an acceptable solution. They'll be there by the end of the day.
Well, the end of the day Monday came and went. Maybe tomorrow? Nope. Tuesday has now come and gone, but the death can remains. After another era of my life on the phone I was told that they'd definitely, maybe be here tomorrow to pick up the source of our weekend debacle and that I could expect a call back from an "operations supervisor" within 48 hours.
They don't pick up the trash reliably, on my street at least, and they killed my neighbor. What exactly are we paying for?
I thought it an entertaining story so I decided to share. Republic is a national service. Anybody else have issues?
Last Saturday, while mowing my yard, I caught a whiff of the unmistakable smell of death. The rancid sort of stench that entices buzzards and warns of decomposition.
My neighbor has a number of cats on her property, well cared for from what I can tell, but every once in a while one tangles with a dog or finds itself under a rolling wheel and dies. It's unfortunate, but it happens. So I didn't pay the smell much attention.
Until an hour or two later when the neighbors from the other side of her house knocked on our door. They were inquiring as to when the last time we'd seen her was. Come to think of it, it's been a few days. It seems the rancid stench I'd noticed earlier was permeating their back room and they feared the worst.
Immediately stories of grandchildren expecting the smell fresh baked cookies, but blindsided by decomposing hydrocarbons and the sight of grandma's bloated, cat nibbled corpse come to mind. What a lovely Saturday.
We knocked on the door and got no answer. The car was in the drive, but there were no signs of life inside. Fantastic.
We're not the sort of neighbors that have each other's spare keys; I don't even know her name to be honest. So we had to call the SAPD for a wellbeing check.
I love these guys. They were here within minutes. They set about poking around the house, trying to determine whether or not they needed to gain entry to her home.
Luckily, toward the end of their search one of the officers opened her trash can at the end of the driveway. Now I know this seems like an obvious place to have checked for a smell, but given that the can had been out since Wednesday and our trash was picked up on Thursday I didn't even consider it as the source.
I don't know what foul manner of thing is in that can, but we can rest knowing that our elderly neighbor is probably away with family rather than becoming ultra-budget fancy feast.
Now, this all took place on Saturday. I called Republic on Monday morning to have the missed can picked up. I was told, after a great long while spent on hold, that they couldn't do anything because it wasn't my trash. I wasn't the account holder.
It's a death can full of foul smelling filth that you failed to pick up as you've been contracted to do and is now engulfing the neighborhood in a cloud of awful, but you won't pick it up because it's not my trash? Fine. I told them to pick it up against my account and I'd move the can in front of my house. That apparently was an acceptable solution. They'll be there by the end of the day.
Well, the end of the day Monday came and went. Maybe tomorrow? Nope. Tuesday has now come and gone, but the death can remains. After another era of my life on the phone I was told that they'd definitely, maybe be here tomorrow to pick up the source of our weekend debacle and that I could expect a call back from an "operations supervisor" within 48 hours.
They don't pick up the trash reliably, on my street at least, and they killed my neighbor. What exactly are we paying for?
I thought it an entertaining story so I decided to share. Republic is a national service. Anybody else have issues?
