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A Texas resident says his trash has not been picked up in over three weeks. After making several phone calls and leaving multiple voicemails, he has not heard back from the City of Lubbock.
Oscar Mendoza shared his complaints with KAMC. "Let’s just say somebody was visiting, I mean it’s summertime so people are coming to Lubbock. So they drive through and they see all of this mess and that’s what the kind of impression they’re gonna get of our city," he said.
Mendoza, who says he takes pride in keeping his home clean, said he's been unable to take trash out from inside his house due to the overflowing trash can outside. "I don’t even want to tell you what one of the trash cans looks like inside and it’s rough right now, we’ve started seeing a lot of flies so we can’t even enjoy our yard," he said.
In a statement to KAMC, City of Lubbock Director of Solid Waste Brenda Haney said:
"The City, like all other solid waste utilities, is experiencing staffing challenges. Additionally, fleet operations around the country are having a difficult time getting parts to repair vehicles. With this combination of these factors it is difficult to staffing our trash routes on a daily basis. On each day we are operating at about 75 to 80% capacity. While we can absorb some of this on a daily basis we cannot absorb it all. Thus means part of Monday’s routes move to Tuesday and part of Tuesday move to Wednesday, an so forth. The solid waste team is working Monday through Saturday to service our residents. While we appreciate the frustration that this may cause we really appreciate the understanding and patience from the community. We are doing everything in our power to ensure that everyone is serviced at least once per week."
The City of Lubbock has addressed the issue after KAMC reached out, the news station reported. The city is now asking its residents to break down boxes to make room in dumpsters and secure loose trash to help alleviate the issue.