7Plex Garbage/Recycling Nightmare

[Jonathan Masse]

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