I have an apartment where the dumpster is a car's drive away, and taking trash down involves 4 staircases. What is the best way to ameliorate this situation?

_number8_@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 131 points –

i cannot possibly express how much of a gigantic pain in the ass this is; it's making more more slovenly than i want to be because it's such an inconvenience to throw stuff away.

like should i buy a hand truck? that wouldn't help for garbage bags

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Making more frequent, smaller trips might make it less of a pain? Maybe stop by the dumpster if it's on the way to/from a daily route you need to take?

Yeah, I would just make it a habit to always leave the home with a trash bag and drop it on the way to wherever I'm heading. Using large trashbags makes you wait until the bag is full. Buy those small 13 gallon (or smaller) bags. I use all my grocery bags as mini trash bags hung on cupboard doors. Makes it easier.

Is the dumpster within line of sight? If so, zip line.

Or zip line to your trunk and then drive it to the dumpster. Afraid to say I have in fact done this... Long rope one end tied to balcony support and the other on the support arm for the trunk then tied bags together in pairs and sent them down riding a wash cloth (i was worried friction would tear through the bags...). Then walk down and load it in the trunk, untie the car and drove it to the dumpsters like 1/4 mile away.

I did it in the middle of the night, less witnesses.

Out of curiosity: what is a “car’s drive away” according to fellow Americans? I mean how many meters would that be?

I'm guessing they live in a large sprawling suburban apartment complex whose trash facilities were designed to be out of the way and unobtrusive rather than functional and convenient.

My last apartment was in a place kind of like that. It sat on a lot that was probably about eight city blocks. For the entire complex they had eight dumpsters in four trash enclosures around the perimeter, two of which were toward the front of the complex, and the other two toward the middle. If you lived at the back of the complex you'd have to carry your trash for at least a block and a half to dispose of it. It wasn't uncommon to see people driving to the trash enclosure with bags of trash balanced on their car's trunk lid.

It's when you are speeding down the highway and huck bags of garbage out your window, then you drive the car away. It's the most economical way to dispose of waste because it doesn't cost anything or end up in a landfill.

Am American and there's not enough context to know. I'm guessing OP lives in a city, and is using "a car's drive" to mean any distance that he doesn't want to drag trash to. Anything longer than a city block, maybe?

I give op props, because I refuse to live anywhere that doesn't have an in-unit washer/dryer and dishwasher, much less a place that has no elevator and no trash shoot. Fuuuuck that.

One American football field

There's a guy that throws his trash out the window on TikTok. If it makes it in the can it's a good week and if he misses it's a bad week. Calls it the garboscope. My point here is that you can at least skip the stairs

What does "the dumpster is a car's drive away" mean?

The dumpster is so far away that they recommend driving a car instead of walking.

That's the obvious interpretation.

If it is the correct interpretation, in what country is this legal? I'd be getting the tenants together to take the landlord(s) to court, if that is the correct interpretation and it is a country with laws about this sort of thing. But I don't know if it is the correct interpretation or what country we're talking about.

The US has very anti-tenant leanings in the judiciary, and bureaucracy overall.

So does every capitalist country. It's very hard to imagine it being legal to rent an apartment without providing trash disposal.

Are we talking an actual car's drive, or a USians idea of a distance that cannot be walked?

Yes. Europeans will walk 3 miles for a coffee, but consider 3 hours a long drive. Americans will drive 100 ft to take out trash, but will drive for 12 hours straight to leave their state.

It usually means you reside in a multi-block sized apartment complex and that the dumpsters are on one end of the complex rather than being centrally located, and your apartment is on the other end... and those distances feel doubled if it is raining, or there is snow or ice on the ground.

Find someone that lives in the complex that will be your trash valet for a small fee. Or post a listing on Craigslist for hiring your own personal trash valet.

Or start a small business and be the trash valet for your complex and make money off your chore.

Gonna be honest I have no idea what a cars drive away is. But 4 staircases sounds like a lot, so is there a way to just a sail it out the window onto the car? And if it's about the distance a bike with a cart on the back has helped me a ton for trash and groceries personally.

You can get a cart that's more along the lines of a hand truck - more vertically shaped. They're often folding too, so you don't have to take up toouch space. A regular hand truck would work too if that's all that's available by taking the whole trash bin rather than just loose bags

Something like this should do well as long as one doesn't mind looking like an urban granny.

cart

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How is it possible for your building not to have an elevator up/down those four floors? I thought ADA would mandate that.

Don't quote me but only something like 5% of an apartment building needs to be ada accessible. So like as long as ground floor has a certain amount of ada units the higher floors don't need to have ada access at all.

That's terrible. I'm imagining moving mattresses and couches in... yikes.

I've only lived on a second floor once. Lucky my sister had strange guy friends to help with that stuff.

My idea: Buy a big trash can with wheels and a lid that seals. If no wheels then add wheels by strapping it to a hand truck. Add trash until full then empty in dumpster. Small bags into large can then large can into dumpster.

Also, you did not mention recycling. How does that work where you are? Most of my waste goes into recycling.

To add to the other comments: try to reduce how much stuff you generate that needs to be thrown in the dumpster. Of course, from the sounds of things, juggling a small bag of trash plus a bin of paper, a bin of plastic, a bin of glass and a bin of all other recyclables would be even more of a headache. Maybe start up a program with the other tenants who must be having the same issues?

Stop buying trash. No Really, use reusable bags, insulated grocery bags, silicon bags. https://www.amazon.com/Stasher-Bag-Leakproof-Dishwasher-Safe-Eco-friendly/dp/B087XBR564 https://www.amazon.com/BAGHOME-Insulated-Shopping-Grocery-Cooler/dp/B06XJNKMGW https://www.amazon.com/Reusable-Organic-Cotton-Produce-Bags/dp/B07Z2SPLMT/

Get a compost bucket for food waste rather than tossing it in the trash. Even if you dont compost it, separating food waste from trash means you can bring just the bucket to the dumpster when needed and it wont stink up a half full garbage bag.

If you buy things that come in packaging ask for scissors or a knife at checkout and cut off the packaging before leaving a store.

Dont order shit online, again seriously if you dont buy a bunch of junk from Amazon (even though I linked it) you wont have all that packaging that needs to be trashed/recycled.

If your not buying trash/packaging, and not bringing it home then you wont have to take out that same trash.

its good exercise, you could get a shopping cart thing and use it for the trash bags.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Why is the dumpster so far? Don't every building have to have a place for trash? If not can't you just talk to the apartment union to get one? That's a pretty standard thing for apartment unions.

"The apartment union" wtf? Lmao

How do you decide to do renovations or hire cleaning for the general purpose areas in apartments without one?

You don't. That's wholly at the discretion of whatever investment firm owns your apartment complex. I've never lived in an apartment that worked any other way.

Oh wow, that sucks. I'm pretty sure an apartment union is a requirement here and I have never had a different experience either. Like we have a general trash area in front of the apartment building, like 4 trashcans for different kind of trash with a tiny building around it that's maintained by the union and the trash there gets emptied once a week.

I guess it's good to say where you are if asking for advice.

They might be under the impression that people are buying these apartments instead of renting them, and then there’s some sort of HOA that covers those things.

It doesn't matter if you buy or rent. At least here you always have an apartment union that all residents are a part of, it's required. Like if you want a water filter installed to the general water intake or want a bike rack in front of the building you ask the union and they bring it up during a meeting so if the budget allows for it they'll put it on a vote. Like how else would you get like a bike rack or a garden for your building?

Like how else would you get like a bike rack or a garden for your building?

You ask the owner, and then accept it will never happen.

Wow, that's wild to me. Though why not just organize anyways? Like if everyone living in a building got together and for example collectively decided to set up a garbage collection area and everyone who lives there pays like a pittance to rent a punch of garbage cans. Having an organizational like that would be pretty useful even if it has no legal authority it can still do things.

Because then if the landlord/management company didn’t like it they would refuse to renew your lease and then you’re out of home. It’s rare for tenants to have much of any rights in the US.

If a whole building worth of people got organised there's not much the owner can do, even cops are gonna have trouble evicting a whole building worth of people and I doubt it would come to that over some trash pickup issues.

Sorry, but absolutely the owners and cops could do as they wish. Would it come to it about trash issues? Probably not, if it was being managed correctly. But say you have some random store bought trash cans closer to the buildings. Now who takes those full cans to the dumpsters? It’s not going to stay managed well. Landlords can evict people very easily for not abiding by terms, which can be pretty lengthy. And people aren’t going to risk their home just to stick it to a landlord. They’re just going to drag their trash out to the dumpster. I really envy you and your country which seems to have a much better way of handling things, but the entire rental industry of the US is built around getting the most money while providing the least necessary for the people.

Yea, but they way to fix your situation is to organize. Like start small with just your apartment building and work up from there, with enough people nothing is impossible. If you wait for someone else to fix it then nothing will change.

I think they are in the US. It operates without the sort of protections that most of the world has.

There is no such standard or organization in the US for people who rent. People are free to form their own groups, but they would hold no legal power.

You don’t. All of that is at the sole discretion of the management company that owns your complex. You have very little say in what the actual complex looks like, or what kinds of amenities it has. Your only real recourse is to break your lease (which can often cost 3-5x your monthly rent) and move to a different complex with the amenities you want.

Welcome to America. Where tenant rights are nearly non-existent and everyone is anti-union because of literal generations of propaganda.

Buy a folding wagon to go up and down the stairs. Lower the garbage bags down from your balcony then load them in the wagon to take to the bin. Fold wagon and take it back up the stairs when done.

Do you have access to money? It sounds like you need a drone, however if you want to fully fill your garbage bags up it will probably require a heavy lift drone. I have found a link for an agricultural drone that should suit your needs.

Unethical solution: throw it out your window.

Ethical solution: suggest a maid service to the office that add be added to your rent a la carte

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I'm trying to imagine how much garbage you're producing for it to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

The best solution seems to be to reduce your waste or exercise a bit.

Can you move? Was this not disclosed before you moved in?