7Plex Garbage/Recycling Nightmare

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7Plex Garbage/Recycling Nightmare

Jonathan Masse
Member since 2020 · 3 posts · 0 votes

I own several smaller duplex/triplex properties and just bought my first small apartment building (7 suites). The previous landlord's garbage system was the following:

Each tenant is responsible for taking their garbage/recycling to the outside bins and then they were paying one of the tenants a nominal amount to take everything to the curb at the appropriate time.

This system seems to put all the responsibility on the tenant being paid to keep it all neat and tidy but since the other tenants don't care the garbage is frequently a mess and everybody is complaining despite the fact that its everyone's fault. On top of this the tenant who was doing this work for me has given notice to vacate.

I'm trying to think of the best solution going forward to keep it all running smoothly and all I've come up with as an alternative is:

Every tenant is responsible for their own garbage/recycling including taking it to the curb. I provide every unit their own recycling bin and two garbage cans labeled with their unit number. Recycling can stay in the units as it is taken weekly but garbage is only taken every two weeks and I'm concerned that this new approach will likely lead to tenants forgetting to take out their garbage on garbage day leaving a mess of garbage piling up outside.

If anybody has experience with this issue or have heard of solutions that work that would be much appreciated. I live about an hour away from the property and can't easily do the garbage for them every two weeks and neither do I really want to.

Looking forward to any feedback you might have.

Thanks.

Jonathan


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    Isaac Pepper
    Rental Property Investor · Zanesville, OH · Member since 2020 · 70 posts · 78 votes
    5y

    @Jonathan Masse I would think with a 7 plex you could get a dumpster. If its bi-weekly pickup I wouldnt go smaller than an 8 cubic yard dumpster. Have you considered this? Does your location have room for this? Can room be made for this? A lot of times you can save money by buying a dumpster instead of renting from the service provider.

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    • John Warren
      Real Estate Broker · 3412 S. Harlem Avenue Riverside, IL 60546 · Member since 2015 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ votes
      5y

      @Jonathan Feliciano you are way over thinking things from what I can tell. I don't run into this exact issue on my larger buildings as we have to contract with private garbage services in the Chicago area. I get trash picked up either weekly or bi weekly and we don't have any recycling sadly. 

      Mom and pop owners put together systems that rely on their tenants like the one you inherited. Put the onus back on the tenants to behave responsibly and they probably will. I also would strongly consider getting trash pickup weekly for an apartment building as trash every two weeks sounds like a terrible idea. 

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    • Andrew B.
      Rockaway, NJ · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
      5y

      The only two options I would be considering is every tenant is responsible for getting their own cans to the street or one dumpster for everybody. 

      You may want to call some disposal companies and see what the options/prices are. 

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    • Isaac Pepper
      Rental Property Investor · Zanesville, OH · Member since 2020 · 70 posts · 78 votes
      5y

      @Jonathan Masse I would think with a 7 plex you could get a dumpster. If its bi-weekly pickup I wouldnt go smaller than an 8 cubic yard dumpster. Have you considered this? Does your location have room for this? Can room be made for this? A lot of times you can save money by buying a dumpster instead of renting from the service provider.

      1Reply
    • Jonathan Masse
      OP
      Member since 2020 · 3 posts · 0 votes
      5y

      I really appreciate all the feedback. I've thought about a dumpster but the site is quite tight and getting a dumpster would likely mean sacrificing limited parking and this location is heavily car dependent. I might start with all tenants responsible for their own garbage/recycling while further exploring a small dumpster and while I appreciate that most tenants should be fine being responsible with their garbage I have one tenant that I know will not and she could cause a huge issue.

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    • Andrew S.
      Rental Property Investor · Helena, MT · Member since 2017 · 282 posts · 117 votes
      5y
      Build a wooden fence around the garbage area - like most fast food or gas stations have. Dumpster sounds like the way to go. That's what I have for my 6 plex.
      1Reply
    • Forrest Williams
      Real Estate Agent · Chicagoland · Member since 2018 · 314 posts · 199 votes
      5y

      I second the dumpster idea; when I was a tenant I found it much more convenient as well. If my place was a mess I only had myself to blame. This could also be an excuse to up the rents $20 or so next time the leases come up for renewal to cover the cost as well. 

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    • Sebastian Leit
      Member since 2020 · 13 posts · 2 votes
      5y
      Originally posted by @John Warren:

      @Jonathan Feliciano you are way over thinking things from what I can tell. I don't run into this exact issue on my larger buildings as we have to contract with private garbage services in the Chicago area. I get trash picked up either weekly or bi weekly and we don't have any recycling sadly. 

      Mom and pop owners put together systems that rely on their tenants like the one you inherited. Put the onus back on the tenants to behave responsibly and they probably will. I also would strongly consider getting trash pickup weekly for an apartment building as trash every two weeks sounds like a terrible idea. 

      John, didn't you think about implementing a recycling system one day in your buildings? This should not be a big problem and, with the responsibility of everyone, it should also work. If there is no possibility to recycle, than people won't do it. If you offer the "infrastructure" than you make the first step and people begin to recycle. 

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    • John Warren
      Real Estate Broker · 3412 S. Harlem Avenue Riverside, IL 60546 · Member since 2015 · 6k+ posts · 5k+ votes
      5y

      @Sebastian Leit its a great idea, but I think we would have to pay extra for it as owners. It isn't something I have ever seen in the area unfortunately. Are you seeing commercial buildings offering recycling in your area? 

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    • Peter TverdovBusiness Member
      Developer · New Brunswick, NJ · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
      5y

      Another solution: pay someone (not a tenant) to bring the garbage out, bring it back in and keep the grounds clean. We do that for properties we manage in NJ in high density towns. Buy the 96 gallon trash cans so they are nice and new and sturdy, label them, pay someone to remove the trash and I think that solves your problem.

      [email protected]732-289-3823
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    • Jonathan Masse
      OP
      Member since 2020 · 3 posts · 0 votes
      5y
      Originally posted by @Peter Tverdov:

      Another solution: pay someone (not a tenant) to bring the garbage out, bring it back in and keep the grounds clean. We do that for properties we manage in NJ in high density towns. Buy the 96 gallon trash cans so they are nice and new and sturdy, label them, pay someone to remove the trash and I think that solves your problem.

      Peter, that is definitely an idea I hadn't thought of. 

      I'm going to ask my grounds guy what he would charge to get this done once a week. I appreciate that for a lot of people a dumpster makes sense but there is literally no where for it on the site. I might even consider a hybrid and make the tenants responsible for their own recycling which is collected weekly and then have my grounds guy come by to do the garbage every two weeks. We already have 6 large garbage cans and the city in question has restrictions on the size of the cans and we've already purchased cans that meet that max criteria. 

      I've even called the city to see if we could switch over to large totes and they said their trucks are old and don't do the newer style large totes like the other cities in the area.

      My day job is multi-family private equity investing in multi-million dollar assets and so I've always understood most of the typical challenges but in my personal foray into multi-family investing with these smaller assets (4plex, 5plex, 6plex etc) I've learnt a whole new set of challenges that come along with smaller properties and it seems adequate room for a dumpster might be the latest lesson learned when looking at future acquisitions...

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    • Josh SkyerPro Member
      Member since 2018 · 16 posts · 9 votes
      5y

      I have been through this .  

      I learned a couple of valuable lessons. 

      1. Never leave it up to the tenants to put trash out on the street and keep trash clean and neat.  If this works for you that great but for the most part it just does not work.  In NYC when tenants mess this up the landlord gets tickets and violations. 

      2. Maybe in a single family , but multifamily is a communal mess.  In theory if everyone just manages there won trash things would work out great.  But that NEVER happens.  

      3. My opinion is to NEVER hire tenants to manage something like this.  ( or any other work in the building)  I believe the relationship between landlord / Tenant needs to be protected.  Hiring tenants to do work has potential to muddy the water when things do work out according to plan.  A live in super is something a bit different. 

      For the trash I would erect some sort of area on site with cans and hire 1 or 2 separate workers to bag it up and bring it out.  I recommend putting bags out this way they don't have to return the next day to bring the cans back in. 

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    • Lynnette E.
      Rental Property Investor · TN · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
      5y

      I have a small apartment building in a small town that charges for trash service with the water bill.  Since this apartment building has separate water for 2 upstairs apartments, but the bottom floor is all one intermixed mess.  So the property gets 3 water/trash bills, the one for the bottom floor going to me.  

      I gave each apartment (upstairs and downstairs) a trash can and lid with the address and apt number on it.  There is a chain link fenced area with gates to keep the trash cans. Only the trash cans go into this area. I think that it helps that they each have their own can with their apartment number on it.   The tenants each roll them out themselves on trash day and bring them back.  It has worked well so far.

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    • Alex Rodriguez
      Sacramento, CA · Member since 2017 · 52 posts · 40 votes
      5y

      I agree with most that have said you need to transition over to a dumpster and hire someone other than a tenant to come out weekly or bi weekly to push it out and back in. The other thing with regards to the messiness you'll have a difficulty the majority of the time. There are ways to mitigate the issue. I have a 4 plex where random people were dumping furniture and other trash. What I did and it actually worked was put a wireless (ring, blink, etc) camera right above the garbage with a sign to "monitor" any illegal dumping. Ever since I have installed the system, the dumping completely stopped. Doesn't mean it wont happen again but sure has been a great deterrent. As far as needing the internet service to connect the camera I asked one of the tenants if I could hook it up to their wifi to help with the issue and they were happy to help. If you find none of them want to, offer a slight discount for the access.They will more than likely work with you. Good Luck!!

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    • Rick M.
      Rental Property Investor · Fort Lauderdale, FL · Member since 2017 · 151 posts · 94 votes
      5y

      We just acquired an 8 Unit by the Seacoast of NH the Previous owner (who ran the property very poorly, putting it nicely) had a Dumpster on the property. The town we bought in makes everyone buy their colored trash bags, that are crazy overpriced, so to circumvent paying for these absurdly overpriced trashbags the tenants would let everyone and their friends use the Landlord funded Dumpster out back. It’s a Mixed-use Building and being so close to downtown some of the Commercial tenants were bringing their home trash to this dumpster. To make matters even Worse, everyone downtown must have known about this Dumpster because the PM had to scare off a few people backing up their trucks, with a truckload of trash, to use this dumpster. It was a nightmare!

      I haven't seen this before, having to buy the towns trashbags, all of our other properties include trash pickup with the taxes. If this towns Taxes were significantly less, I could see why they don't include Trash with the Taxes but this is a working class town and the taxes are just as high, if not higher than our other properties that are in more highly desirable parts of NH. We bought some of those large plastic trash bins from Home Deport, 64 gallon I think, with a few smaller recycling bin and all of the tenants haven't had an issue wheeling their trash to the curb (and buying their own town specific trash bags). Everyone should be responsible enough to wheel and retrieve their units assigned bin to the curb and back. The trash pickup does come each week, bi-weekly trash could be done but each week is ideal. I did have to add the trash and recycling as something the tenants will be responsible for in all of the lease.

      You have to remember YOU own the property NOT the tenant, I have to tell my Property Manager once in a while "You are the Boss, Start acting like it!"

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