Empire Waste Systems Inc

I moved in with my 90 year old grandmother recently, so she could come from the hospital (night "supervision" required). Empire Waste/Lusk Disposal bought out Havens recently--Havens had been providing my grandmother's waste removal for years. Granted, she never produced much trash on her own, so the only reason there may be a problem now is that it's noticeable if there's no regular service. But that's irrelevant and entirely speculation. Any which, I moved into my grandma's house the next to last week of April, just as she was being released home. We received no service from Empire (despite being paid up) the first two weeks in May. I didn't realize they hadn't been coming by until I was no longer able to take out the trash--the cans were too full. Seeing about how many bags that took--AT LEAST two weeks' worth, given our standard three (generally fewer) bags a week, I called about it. Honestly, there might have been fully three weeks' worth of missed service, but I like to understate estimates. Of course, apology was made, along with the assurance that service would occur on the next regular day--days later--Friday. Later in the week, having then been forced to keep two bags of trash in the house, I called back to find out what time service would occur, trying to make sure they got ALL of the trash when they came. No idea when that would be, I was told by the dispatcher. So, I conceded to a notification by the driver when he arrived. It didn't happen. On the upside, we were at least able to put all trash out in the cans, May 20--removing them from the house. I called the company back to find out why we weren't notified, though, and during conversation was assured that if we went over the six bag maximum for the next pick-up, there would be no fee. Only no one picked up the trash last Friday, May 27. Unfortunately, I didn't realize it until Saturday (assuming that having been notified of a problem, service would return). There was nothing I could do until Tuesday, given the holiday. A dog got into the trash on Sunday, so now, that's just grand. And now I've called twice this week--on Tuesday being told by the dispatcher that she'd send someone out that day (didn't happen), and today having spoken with Sloan (manager of some sort) at Empire, I've been assured that they WILL pick up on Friday, that they -MIGHT- be able to let me know when they're here (so I can bring the bags of trash out of the house again, as there's now one sitting in the kitchen waiting), and that because we didn't have three continual weeks of missed service, no price adjustment is possible because they "still have to cover their cost of disposal." We just get to keep the trash in the house till Friday, now. I'm shopping for another waste management company, of course. It will be so nice not to have trash festering in the house (Oh, how I long for central A.C.!) between missed pick-ups--which we've still paid for to "cover their cost of disposal." This last, despite the fact that even two weeks' worth of our garbage is within their WEEKLY limit.