Property managers raise stink over scam in trash bin pickup skips
Nothing stinks like mishandled garbage under the hot June sun in the desert.
Apartment house and condominium property managers are protesting a scam resulting from the local trash collection contractor’s payment of a $4 bounty for photographs of overfilled trash bins that resulted in additional fees.
The fee assessed is $47.94 for each three-cubic-yard Dumpster with trash stacked higher than the container’s lip.
Property managers allege that trash collection drivers randomly skip the emptying of trash bins to allow refuse to pile up so a photo can be take at the next pickup.
At Southern Vista, a condominium community on Russell Road in the southwest valley, homeowners association secretary Esther Lucibello said drivers did not empty bins that were not full, “only to bill our association for having ‘overloaded bins’ on their next visit,” the Las Vegas Sun reported in its June 14 edition.
At Desert Club Apartments on Koval Lane, managed by H&L Realty, garbage collectors did not empty14 of 46 Dumpsters on June 2, Barbara Holland, H&L president, told the
Sun.
While $4 per photo might not sound like much, Holland told the Sun that if a driver skips two bins at each property and serves 10 properties, he could make an extra $80 a day, or about $20,000 a year.
Republic Services, the sole contractor in Clark County for general trash collection services, denies any wrongdoing. Its exclusive contract with the county runs until 2025, the Sun reported.
