Also, freecycle.org. I only did Craigslist first because it took a couple of days to get registered on Freecycle.
Sorry, I’m a little confused after reading the thread, I’m still not sure how **Broomstick **disposes of regular house trash right now. Do you have a private service that picks up regular trash?
My apartment building has a private service that also restricts putting furniture and such in the actual dumpsters, because they aren’t prepared with the regular trucks to take furniture and so the poor guy would have to fish the big stuff like that out before being able to lift the dumpster into the truck. What they do, instead, is have residents put furniture to be disposed next to the dumpsters, and when the regular pickup occurs, the extra gets called in and they do an extra pickup - for additional fees, of course. Usually gets picked up within 3-5 days of getting put outside.
So, my take on that is asking if the private service will do an extra pickup of stuff that’s outside the dumpster and how much that fee would be. I’m having a hard time with thinking a regular garbage service wouldn’t do extra-fee pickups. Man it would be a mess of totally full alleys around here if they didn’t do that! (there is no city pickup for buildings larger than 3-flats, so every residential building larger than that has to get private service)
Yes, we have a private trash service. It is $95 for an extra pick up and they emphatically will NOT take mattresses.
My area used to be rural, but the urban sprawl has caught up with it. So… we don’t have perks like municipal pickup, AND it is now illegal to burn trash on one’s property. Everyone in the unincorporated areas has to pay for trash service, which is down to two companies in my area, and both charge fairly steep rates because there isn’t much choice. If people don’t get rid of their garbage, just let it pile up, then they get fined. So it’s a bad situation. I know of a couple properties where there’s an outbuilding filled with a couple years of garbage.
The former tenants aren’t worth going after. There’s no money there. Really. They spent the last two months of residence without electricity, gas, or running water due to inability to pay utility bills. Given that, is it a wonder they didn’t pay someone to haul the mattress and boxspring away? They couldn’t take it anywhere, either, as their car was busted and they didn’t have money to fix that either. After they abandoned it the landlord looked it over, decided it wasn’t worth fixing, and had a junker service tow it away. But they only dealt with cars.
This is not, however, as bad as the tenants back about 5 years now who decided to raise money for their rent by first stripping the aluminum siding off the house and selling it for scrap, then cooking meth on the waterbed in the bedroom. It did not end well.
What can I say? When middle class people fall into dire poverty it gets very, very ugly. They won’t admit how shitty things have gotten, they’re either too proud to ask for help or don’t know where to go for help, and sometimes they panic or freeze up and don’t do anything to help themselves until it’s too late. Or they do something stupid or bad or criminal to try to get money.
As I mentioned upstream, it’s potentially a $500 fine for leaving stuff outside a dumpster in my area. The county “can’t afford” trash pickup for everyone, but apparently they feel free to ticket folks.
Did you think I was kidding about mattresses being left alongside roads around here? You are absolutely correct, that sort of situation leads to a mess. That’s why around here we have garbage next to roads and illegal dumping going on everywhere.
Since you live in an unincorporated area, at the very least you have a County government(?) FWIW - give them a call and complain about this. They have some say over who gets the trash hauling contract, and the terms. I’m not suggesting this will solve your immediate problem, but it may get somebodies balls rolling.
Yes, we have a county government. NO, they have nothing to do with trash hauling. It’s either city trash service or, if your city doesn’t have such, or you’re outside a city you have to contract with a private hauler. They have no say in who gets the trash hauling “contract” because there isn’t one with the “county government”. It’s strictly between private individuals/landlords and the private companies doing the hauling. I’m not sure why people are having such a hard time comprehending this.
The locals governments that don’t supply trash pickup do not care (unless you dump something they don’t like, have garbage outside your dumpster, or they catch you burning trash). Calling them does no good. As far as they’re concerned it’s the responsibility of the owner to find a trash service, that is not something provided by all governments around here. If yours doesn’t, tough shit, you’re on your own.
Well, I for one have a bit of trouble comprehending this because I’ve always lived in incorporated cities and towns, with responsive local government.
Well, I’m in sort of a Libertarian “paradise” - we have very little local government, and for the most part you’re on your own for taking care of stuff. Maybe it’s why I’m not a Libertarian.
Almost every quasi rural area I’m familar with is lousy with “two guys and a truck” haul away type services. Why is this not the go to answer?
It’s not remotely libertarian to illegalize burning garbage (which is how rural folk typically deal with it) or to police your personal property the way they are. It’s pretty fascist, actually, to demand that you deal with your garbage by going through one of only two vendors, neither of whom will apparently deal with mattresses.
Make friends with someone who is incorporated and have them take the trash to the county dump.
Did I miss this: was Bagster a no go?
Obviously the landlord should have stuffed the mattresses into the junker before he had it towed away.
That really sucks. When we lived in an unincorporated zone, it was rural. Everybody burned their trash, there was no pickup. Sounds like you’ve got the worst of both worlds.
How can the city enforce code if you’re not part of the city?
No Bagster in our area. Every time I check, I weep for what could be…
Seriously, they would have made a million dollars off of our house so far.
We have problems with air quality around here, what with the mills and all. I’m glad people aren’t burning garbage all the time. Plus, I don’t think it’s a rural area, so much as a built up “town” that has not been annexed to a particular city.
And no, I’m sure the landlord could call any one of a number of 1-800-Got-Junk type of places. It just costs money.
ETA - Are mattresses really “garbage”? I don’t think so, not really.
I imagine its going to cost. Landfills are endangered species. Where I last lived you took refuse to a recycle station, where recyclables were removed. The remainder trucked who-knows-where. Burning is a bad idea - smoke, you know. Nobody will have a use for them to reclaim them, incl. political parties. Muffin-Political donations are not deductible.
After thinking about it…
I’m not sure if the cutters I linked would cut the steel wire used in bed frames. I’d have to look at it too know for sure. The ones I linked do have longer handles that give leverage for cutting. No way would you ever cut that steel wire with cheap $7 side cutters. You got to have long handles for leverage.
Chain Cutters would do the trick for sure. But, I’d peel back the fabric and see how big a wire the spring/frame is made of. The cutters I linked may do the job perfectly.
Well that shoots that idea in the foot. About all that is left is to drop them off at a whore house with your favourite religious politician’s card attached.
Since I didn’t see the thing about bagster until AFTER I got home from work, which was after work hours, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to the landlord who, after all, is the guy who would pay for it, it’s more a matter of there hasn’t been enough time to see if it’s a viable alternative. I do note Bagster is a division of Waste Management which doesn’t normally do business in this area. I don’t know if that would be a problem or not.
Well, yes, but they’re wise to that - they tend to unload large junk items from cars before towing because they don’t want to have to deal with this stuff, either.
Yep.
The county has codes, too, you know 
Five years ago you could still burn trash in unincorporated areas. Then the incorporated places started complaining about the smoke and passed the rule county-wide, because they have more people and thus more power in the voting booth. Also, I think a lot of them assumed the unincorporated areas had some sort of automatic trash pickup, which as I mentioned, we don’t.
I’ve spent much time in unincorporated areas in Virginia and I guess we just have better county governments / trash pickup companies here. Trash was just simply never a problem, and it was easy to pay extra for large item pickup. This was in very rural, low density regions. Oh well…guess I’m glad I don’t live in Indiana, always heard it was pretty backwards, but I never would have thought it was more backwards than SW Virginia where I grew up. Even trash burning is rare down there these days.
In my business it isn’t totally uncommon for us to need very short term labor, like 1-2 days work. We have a small permanent staff that might need supplemented 3-4 times a year, maybe for a week at a time or less. I’ve also hired lots of workers for single jobs. Have you just tried putting up a Cragislist ad saying, “$60 cash to haul old mattress off property.” In this economy I think you’d get some bites. I’ve advertised similarly for different jobs now and again on Craigslist and I always get lots of people emailing me, so many so that I’ve mostly got a contact list of people who are always reliable for temporary work that I tend to use as a first resort to avoid having to sift through all the Craigslist emails.
Well, I guess that settles that question, as we’re in the same general area…
Look, frankly, I wouldn’t burn a mattress near my home, especially not near my garden - the foam making up most of a mattress will generate extremely toxic smoke. I understand the appeal of burning the damn thing, you’d just be left with the metal which you could then sell for scrap, but seriously people, those of you suggesting burning, don’t you realize how toxic burning foam is?
50 years ago it was rural. Now, yes, it’s a built up “town”. Merrillville won’t have us, and the locals refuse to be part of Gary.
Trust me - the ones I’m looking at are. Pulled part of an animal skeleton out of one of 'em yesterday.
Don’t need to cut any metal. The local scrappers will happily take intact bedsprings, as long as all the non-metal bits have been removed first. Ever take apart a mattress? It can be more effort than you realize. Having to do it in 97 degree heat just adds to the fun.
Which is probably what we’ll do - I’ll wind up dismantling the mattress, we’ll sell the springs, and stuff the other crap into a trash bag so it doesn’t look like a mattress. I’ll just have to suit up in the heavy leather gloves and get some sharp utility knives. This won’t be fun. These things reek. But it looks like it might be cheaper for him to pay me to do the job at my hourly rate than to pay what it costs to get someone to haul it away.
As for the fly-by-night haulers - how do you think crap like this winds up beside the road and in fields and backlots? If we can’t get someone to haul one of these away legally for under $50 (or more) what makes you think the shady guys we slip $20 will be able to do it? How do you think they make a profit? It ain’t by paying landfill fees.