Ticket for Trash - Who Pays?
I woke this morning to find four garabge bags on my sidewalk put there by an over zealous tenant 12 hours too early and was promptly handed a ticket for $300. They have been tenants for 2 yrs. Who should pay this in your experience?
I woke this morning to find four garabge bags on my sidewalk put there by an over zealous tenant 12 hours too early and was promptly handed a ticket for $300. They have been tenants for 2 yrs. Who should pay this in your experience?
quote:
We have no choice but to wait for trash night to put out the garbage.
omg i think i would die. i dont believe in having any trash inside an apartment for more than 2 seconds, EVER!
*rob*
BrooklynInHome: The question here isn’t whether the City is entitled to go after the owner for the ticket. The question is whether the owner is entitled to go after the renter. I say absolutely, at a minimum it can be taken out of the security deposit.
Your property. Your ticket. DSNY tickets are a nubmers game. They bet that you won’t fight the ticket and the city will have additional revenue. Fight the ticket. After that’s resolved, have a chat with the tenant and tell him what you had to go through.
A guy in my building keeps putting his cardboard recycling out in a big sloppy unbound pile, and my landlord has gotten a couple of tickets as a result. It’s not a matter of not knowing the rules, as the landlord has sent email reminders to the tenants on proper recycling habits. The tenant in question has on other occasions exhibited an expectation that other people will do his work for him (like leaving his old newspapers on the stoop for days until I pick them up for him), which makes me want to kick him in the nuts. I hope my landlord takes the price of the tickets out of his security deposit when he leaves.
300$ is a lot of money- when did this tenant move to NYC? How did they not know? I’d talk to them and find out why they did it and see if they are willing to pay the fine to at least pay part of it. Other than that, unless you can successfully fgight it, you don’t have much recourse.
Bklyncynic…not every home is set up for that. Take for instance where I live…a commercial stretch of 5th ave. There is no space/permission to have outdoor receptacles without blocking the sidewalk. As much as we’d all like to live on tree-lined residential streets, a lot of us sadly don’t. We have no choice but to wait for trash night to put out the garbage. The rules for us are to put bags out after 5pm the night before pick-up either at the curb or leaning against the building.
I agree with Arkady/Snappy – try to have it reduced, but also mention to the tenant you received a fine. Hopefully the tenant will offer to pay some of the fine, which I think is something they should do, but if they don’t offer, I would just eat it as the LL and give them a stern warning that if DOS fines your bldg again for the tenants garbage, the tenant will pay for it
Why would the tenant have to put the trash out on the sidewalk, anyway? Do you provide outdoor trash receptacles for tenants to use, which you then empty and put the bagged trash on the sidewalk at the appropriate time? If so, then the tenant should have put the trash in the receptacles; if not, and a tenant with overflowing garbage cans inside his/her unit had no choice but to put the trash on the sidwalk, then I think you need to rethink your system.
In any event, I think you pay it this time, but you explain the rules to the tenant and make clear that if it happens again, the tenant pays.
I would pay it but give him a warning. It’s nice that he tried to help and put out the bins… if you make him pay, he’ll never help you again.