In an effort to qualify how much trash is throw out by homeowners, renters and their guests, I asked our guys to bag it up and set it aside. Over the course of 5 consecutive days, we picked up 5 contractor size bags of trash that our residents and guests intentionally tossed out onto our common areas.\u00a0 The average contractor size bag holds approximately 9 cubic feet. That means we picked up 45 cubic feet of loose paper, plastic drink cups, fast food bags, candy bar wrappers, snack packages, discarded food,\u00a0 and a variety of other trash that could have just as easily be thrown in the trash at the home of the originator.<\/p>\n
To put it another way, the man-hours expended to try to keep the subdivision presentable amounts to around $30,000 per year picking up garbage from our common areas. This is money that could be better spent on other things. We sometimes have to send out two guys to pick up the grounds on Monday as the volume increases over the weekend.\u00a0 All of this trash has an effect on our property values, and ties up both men and money that needs to be used for repairs, painting and other projects around the 22 acre subdivision.<\/p>\n
If things do not improve over the rest of the year, we may need to look at an increase in assessment dues next year to compensate for the money spent to pick up grounds litter that shouldn’t be there in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In an effort to qualify how much trash is throw out by homeowners, renters and their guests, I asked our guys to bag it up and set it aside. Over the course of 5 consecutive days, we picked up 5 contractor size bags of trash that our residents and guests intentionally tossed out onto our..<\/p>\n