Syracuse, NY – There’s a new trend in Syracuse and it’s not catching people’s eye as much as their noses. City officials say trash is piling up on city streets lately, and it is worse than before. It’s promted city officials to take action.
“It’s a quality of life issue,” Corey Driscoll, Deputy Director of Code Enforcement, said. “But I can’t put an exact date as to when people started putting their trash out early.”
Driscoll, along with the rest of the Mayor’s Office has watched this problem pile up since the summer began.
The trouble starts at home
“The problem is,” she said. “You can’t make people be responsible homeowners.”
Driscoll points that many homeowners simply don’t care that they are voilating city regulations. On top of that, certain homes are vacant or rented out and the homeowner isn’t around.
Wayne Perham, a Syracuse homeowner, says the city may carry part of the blame.
“I called them up this summer,” Perham said. “And they yelled at me because I was on the wrong schedule. They asked me to put it out the next day because they were going to pick it up, and then didn’t show up until a week later.”
Message for you
So Driscoll and the city have taken action. They began writing letters to each homeowner that is caught with trash out early. The letter gives the homeowner 24 hours to clean up their act.
“Surprisingly enough, once we took the educational approach, at leas tin my experience this past summer. We had a much higher rate of compliance one we sent out the letters to say here are the rules, please follow them, we’re paying attention, we’ll be back to see if you’ve done that, we appreciate your cooperation. We have very few repeat offenders.”
And that is what Driscoll, and the city aiming for. As she put it, multiple times, Tuesday: It’s a quality of life issue.
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