CIty of Houston

Yes, it’s true. I’m feeling cantankerous. In this instance it’s because of the City of Houston department of Solid Waste Management. They broke one of our  trash cans. And after over a month, I’m still struggling to get it repaired or replaced.

There’s a bit of tale to this. It started on February 29th. On this date, the driver made the routine pickup, but proceeded on down the street before putting the can back on the ground. To our security cameras this looked like they were taking the can with them. They just drove out out of frame.

In reality, they put it down about 10 yards to our North. However, it was damaged. The wheels had broken off. They must’ve gone into the truck, because they were nowhere to be found.

Strike 1

I used the Houston 311 mobile app to open a ticket with the city. The 311 app requires that your select a category for the ticket. There was no category that corresponded to repair or replace a trash can. So, I had to choose “Other” and put in some notes.

I attached this very snippet of video to illustrate what happened. As well as a picture of the damaged can sitting at the end of our driveway.

There was a flurry of automatic email resulting from the ticket. One noted the ticket had been “Reclassified From Other to Container Repair Referred to Solid Waste.” They projected it would be addressed within 10 days.