ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

Here in Kansas City, one of the major trash pickup companies in the area is a stupid company named Deffenbaugh. Pronounced, DEFF-in-baw. And I hate them because they have not been to our house for over a week and a half now.

In other parts of the city, people sometimes get a choice about their trash collection options. Some people get to seek refuge in the warm, inviting arms of rival waste management company BFI. But living in the Dot, we have to face the grim reality of the Deffenbaugh monopoly. They haven’t shown up on time to pick up the damn trash since before Christmas now.

Our normal day is Thursday. Not that this means anything to them. To Deffenbaugh, Thursday means, “when and if we ever feel like showing up”. Now, it’s normal for the trash to be picked up a day late when there’s a holiday during the week. We expect this. But there has not been a single holiday since New Year’s, and they haven’t been showing up until Friday night or Saturday. Which is total crap, because even though we have a big, heavy duty trash can, it can only hold a week’s worth of rubbish. When they hadn’t shown up by Saturday night, we knew we were in for a long haul. I got pissed off and wrote an e-mail to their customer service, to which I of course never received a reply.

For the last 3-4 weeks, our trash has not been collected in a timely manner. Our normal pickup day is Thursday, but lately no one has been showing up until Friday or Saturday. Sometimes we have had to wait so long that if I didn’t see trash outside my neighbors’ houses, I’d think the collectors had shown up early and we’d missed them.

We’ve already got an overflowing container, and it’s Friday night. Because of the holiday Monday, if no one shows up this weekend, does that mean we will have to wait another whole week before anyone shows up? It’s ridiculous having to leave the trash out for multiple nights since we have no way of knowing which day Deffenbaugh MIGHT decide to show up. To make matters worse, when it gets put off like this, we have to deal with animals getting into the extra two days of trash that would no longer fit in the can.

Please get this situation under control!

So basically we are paying these assholes to NOT PICK UP TRASH from our house. It’s not just us. They aren’t picking up for anybody in our neighborhood. I told the lady on the phone that I would like a refund for last week. She said that since they are contracted with the city, they can’t offer me that and I have to talk to the cryptofascists at BPU. Right. She also promised that we were scheduled to be picked up “this afternoon” and the truck would be there very soon.

When they hadn’t shown up by the time my boyfriend got home today at four o’clock, he called to let me know and I called to complain. I talked to a woman who explained that they haven’t been able to come because of all the ice and snow on our road. How, pray tell, have we managed to make it up and down the road and in and out of our driveways, in our pitiful little matchbox cars, when the six ton trash truck can’t do it?

I told my boyfriend this when I got home. He was skeptical. I moved all the bagged trash that we moved back to the porch this weekend back to the curb. It is now past 8:30 and they have not shown up. So tomorrow I will call BPU and tell them I refuse to pay for this bullshit and see what they say, and call Deffenbaugh and threaten someone’s life if nobody comes to TAKE AWAY OUR FUCKING GARBAGE.

What I wonder is, if they actually happen to show up tomorrow, does it count as last week’s pickup, or this week’s? I.E. will they actually make us go three weeks with only one pickup in that whole time?