Landlord counts the ways Syracuse is mishandling its new trash program (Your Letters)

To the Editor:

I am writing to you to express my dissatisfaction with the rollout of the new Syracuse trash program. I own three rental properties in the city and am a compliant landlord with the rental registry program. I have owned these properties since 2005, 2006 and 2009, respectively.

I have multiple issues with how this program is being handled and will summarize as follows:

The trash violation stickers are being placed on the trash cans and not the door of the residence. As a result, they are not noticed in a timely fashion.
Owners, who are registered with the city through the rental registry program are not immediately notified of the violations, and therefore have no way to immediately intervene. The registry has our cell phones and email addresses and, at a minimum, we should get an alert in one of these ways. It currently takes a week before I get a notice by snail mail.
Twenty-four hours to respond is not enough time, as many people put the trash out the night before and then get up and dash off to work only to see the sticker the end of the next day when they return from work to bring the cans back to the house. In the past, we had 48 hours to respond to bulk trash violations, and the stickers were put on our doors.
The fines, with surcharge, are very high. One of my rentals got a violation recently because the lid would not close completely as the bags were not pushed down tight enough and they considered that “excessive.” The tenants are good people who have been in the unit for years and both work low-income jobs struggling to make ends meet. To be forced to pay a $350 fine because one-quarter of a bag of trash was sticking out is ridiculous. I am sure the common council thought this would be a good money maker for the city, but in my opinion, they are extorting money from people already struggling to pay their bills.

I am a compassionate landlord who takes great pride in providing clean affordable housing to my tenants, most which have been with me for over a decade, however I am now so disappointed with how the city is handling this that I am considering selling all my Syracuse properties.

David Huntington

Syracuse