DALLAS — For 18 years, Lee Ruiz had his trash picked up at his Oak Cliff home on schedule every time.
But he says garbage workers have now come just twice in the past month and a half.
“It was perfect,” Ruiz said. “What we didn’t know is it was going to completely fall apart.”
Ruiz is far from alone.
In December, Dallas rolled out a new trash pickup schedule, moving from four days a week to every weekday, with a goal of saving money and cutting down on delays.
Instead, councilman Chad West, who represents the Oak Cliff area, said the issue has led to more complaints than any other issue in the last four years he’s been in office.
“You have neighbors that you never hear from the entire time you’re in office, and this has brought out neighbors that are like we just want our basic trash picked up,” he said. “I had another gentleman call me and tell me he’s driving his trash to his own office because he doesn’t trust the city to get it.”
Some missed the news the schedule changed and have put containers out on the wrong days. Others are putting trash out correctly but not getting it picked up for weeks at a time.
“Our neighbors are away in Colorado so we’re using their trash can too. Everybody is making do as best we can,” Ruiz said.
In a council briefing last week, officials blamed bad weather and a holiday rollout for the issues.
“We’ve always had holidays. We’ve always had bad weather and certainly a day it gets behind, but it always got picked up,” Ruiz said. “It’s clearly a problem now.”
“Oak Cliff has really been left behind on this,” West said. “I’ve been hearing from my colleagues that it is city-wide, and some neighborhoods are getting hurt worse than others.”
He said older neighborhoods like East Dallas are also seeing issues. Residents have complained of health issues and even rodents.
West expects the problems to be fixed in the next two to three weeks and, if not, he said they should review contracts. He and other council members are working to get credits on trash bills for residents who didn’t have proper pickups. He’s using office funds to pay for an emergency trash pickup Monday and Tuesday for those in dire need.
“I think people are getting frustrated,” Ruiz said. “I would love to go back to the way it was. They never missed our trash until the rollout happened.”