When we moved away from Colorado, I called Waste Management, our then-current garbage company and let them know I needed to stop our service starting Wednesday, May 1st. It was perfect because it was the end of the quarter, the kind lady on the phone told me that we wouldn't owe anything else, and wouldn't get any more bills in the future. Great! We moved to North Carolina. I got an invoice in my email saying I owed $92.12, so I called them just to make sure - they said "Oh, no, you don't owe us anything! Disregard the bill. For some reason it didn't clear out your account, so I'll do that now. Have a great day!" Okay, great. I got the paper bill in the mail and ignored it.
We bought our new house! Time to find garbage service. I called Waste Industries, the company that all of our neighbors had, and our house's previous owners had. We still had the trash cans, so I asked if we could just continue the same service with the same cans and change to our name. They said "No, sorry. We don't service new customers in your area anymore - we're stopping service to your area the end of July. We'll pick up the old cans though."
*Sigh* Bummer. Oh well, I tried Republic, the other company that some of our neighbors had. They said exactly the same thing! No new customers, and we're not going to service your area anymore. Weird. So I asked, okay, I don't know any other garbage companies around here, do you have a recommendation? She said that the ONLY place that services our area is a little company called Rural Garbage Service. I called them, and they said "We'd love to get you started - but you have to come into the office, we don't do payments or new customers over the phone. What??? What is this, the 90's? Okay, so I dragged my VERY (39 weeks) pregnant self to the office along with all 3 kids.
The office was tiny, busy, and rather ghetto, but whatever - it was a garbage company, after all. We signed up for trash and recycling. The next day was the day before trash pickup, so Will put the can out. And then we had a baby that night! What with the craziness of having a baby, we didn't realize or care right away that they never picked up the trash. I tried to call the next week about it, but I just got voicemail and couldn't talk to anyone. I waited until the day after the NEXT trash pickup, when it didn't get picked up again, and I brought my brand new baby and 3 big kids back to the office. I let them know what happened, and the lady was SO nice. She was extremely apologetic, and told me that our service never actually got into the system for some reason. They would be out to collect the trash within 24 hours. Okay, annoying, but no biggie. Trash got picked up and we went on with our lives.
Until...the next week, it didn't get picked up again. And this was the 3rd week, and our recycling hadn't been picked up once yet. I called again. Ohhh, it was a new driver that day, so they missed us somehow. They came and got it later that day, so all was well, I supposed.
Until it wasn't. Recycling was FOR SURE supposed to be picked up the 24th and it definitely was not. I called, and they're like "Oh, sorry! We'll come get it right away." They did, and they picked up our trash as scheduled the next day. From then on, they picked up our recycling as scheduled ONCE. ONE TIME. The rest of the time I had to call and ask them to pick it up.
Sometime around the end of June I got a bill for $15. No clue what it was for. I called. They didn't answer, I left a message. They never called me. I called again, they picked up! They had no clue what the bill was for. They said they would find out and call me back (yeah right). They didn't. I called a couple of days later, they said the same exact thing. They DID call me back that time. The guy said "It's because you have 96 gallon cans, and you only paid for 64 gallon cans."
Except we only had 64 gallon cans. *sigh* They put the money on my account for the next quarter.
July 22nd I called and let them know we needed the recycling picked up. The lady on the phone said
"Oh, well, recycling is only every other week."
"Umm, yeah, I know. It was supposed to picked up yesterday."
"Let me check...It's supposed to be picked up on August 5th."
"...Yes. That's two weeks from yesterday. I needed it picked up yesterday."
"It says here that they DID pick it up yesterday."
"Well...my can is full still."
"Is it out on the curb?"
"Yes..."
"Did you put it out in time?"
"Yes...it's been out since Sunday night."
(I can tell at this point she's getting frustrated with me. But seriously, I've been putting trash out for the last 10 years. I know how it works.)
"Well, put the extra in a box and I'll make a note that they need to pick it all up on August 5th."
In the meantime, I got a bill from Waste Management in Colorado. Basically saying hey, you owe us $92.12. If you don't pay this bill immediately, we're sending it to collections! I called WM and explained the situation. They apologized profusely and spent a good 5 minutes working on it, because for some reason it didn't clear out like it was supposed to the first time. Finally that got cleared up and I haven't heard from them since, thank goodness.
I called a couple more times to get the recycling picked up over the next few weeks. I had a quick chat with a neighbor, because now it was September and everyone still had Waste Industries, that had told me they were stopping service in our area. Neighbor knew nothing about that, and as far as she knew they were current and active in our neighborhood.
September 5th it came to a head when they, yet again, did not pick up the recycling. I gave them a couple of extra days to account for labor day (according to the website it should have been picked up Tuesday). I called Waste Industries again, planning on telling them that all of our neighbors still have their service, so what's the deal?? They told me "Oh sure, we'll set up service for you right away!" WHAT????
I called Rural Trash Company and got no answer, as usual. I went to the office and told them I wanted to cancel our service and get a refund for all of our recycling. She was extremely sweet and kind and promised that we would get our money back, and she felt SO bad that we had such a bad experience. Good riddance to them! I just really hope this new company is much, much better.
