Tenant won't recycle?

Question

Hi I own a home and have a small apartment over my garage that I rent out. The tenant that I have there now refuses to recycle. What's the big deal? I have already received 2 fines from my county garbage pick up which I made her pay. I have told her that it is enforced that we recycle in my area and on top of it, I am really big into recycling everything. I am tired of going out every day before garbage pick up to go through her trash and sort the recycling. She just pays the fine and thinks it's done and over with. What can I do about this??

Answer 1

More than likely you can't do anything.  If you wanted a tenant to recycle then you should have put it into your lease.  If the lease doesn't say anything about it then there is nothing you can do.  The fact is recycling is not as great as most people think.  Very few things make economic sense to recycle... aluminum cans makes sense.. most other things don't and if it were not for government subsidies provided to people accepting the items they would be tossed in the waste bins.  

Answer 2

Although she is not your child, and nobody HAS to recycle...I understand your concern and frustration! Since I became addicted to recycling, paying attention to energy I use, smelling a nearby landfill when driving by and learning more about our great earth, I feel OBLIGED to spread the word. Recycling is so easy! I've cut my garbage to near nothing and have an overflowing recycling can each week. I don't think you should let her be...besides the law, you have the opportunity to change one person to being more green. Unfortunately, the only way I know how to convince people to recycle is by living with them and showing them how great it is to not have so much stinking garbage. The child in me would be tempted to leave her unsorted garbage by the garage/apartment and not take it out. That would be great if you could put a clause in the rental agreement stating that there will be a monthly charge if you have to sort any of her garbage, and I'm sure you will put it in there next time you write a lease agreement. I'm not sure if it is legal (and who cares, what is she going to do about it?) but I agree that you should give her the months notice that you will begin charging her for not following the enforced rules. Good luck!!    

Answer 3

get up real early one morning and nail some shutes outside her window that go to each bucket that way she can just put it in a shute and if that dont work make sure you get up early all the time and make a ruckus of sorting out the recyclables

Answer 4

How did we get to a point in this country where recycling is mandatory? Seems to me that if privacy rights keep the government out of a womans uterus, they should also keep the government out of your garbage can!

Answer 5

If she chooses not to recycle, she chooses not to recycle. If she chooses to pay the fine, she chooses to pay the fine. She's your tenant, not your child. Let her do as she wishes and pay the fine if she chooses and don't play big brother. No one HAS to recycle if they choose not to and it's really none of your business if she pays the fines. I am sure she does a lot of things in her life you wouldn't like.....but that's just it, it's her life.

Answer 6

you should try explaining her the consequences of recycling and the cons (are there any?) & pros.  

Answer 7

charge your tenant a monthly fee for not recycling. give one months notice that this is being added to the lease. make it a steep fee to encourage the recycling. then give one large bin for products to be recycled to put in her unit and take it weekly to do yourself. the fee will pay you for your time and the reward is greater:)

Answer 8

Recycling, Hmm, all well and good if your county council employees do thier job properly.  I have placed re cycleable items out for collection and had them left for some inexplicable reason.  This has happened on several occasions. I USED to wash all tin cans out in the left over wash up water to ensure they didnt smell and attract animals or germs, same with everything else that could be washed. But after taking the trouble to do this then have the stuff left, I no longer bother to re cycle anything anymore. re cycling is a two way street, so I suspect this lady in question may have had a similar experience maybe.

Besides, after working at a recycling centre, I can assure you, a LOT of what people so laboriously sort for disposal is taken directly to land fill sites anyway!!

Answer 9

I am assuming you have a rental contract with this individual. In your contract you should include a section addressing the tenants responsibility to abide by HOA regulations, city state and government ordinances. You should also have included something in regards to what happens if they repeatedly fail to comply. The rental contract I have requires me to follow these rules. If a fine is incurred because of a violation, I am required to pay the fines and receive a warning letter from landlord. After three or more warnings for the same violation, I am officially in violation of my rental contract and can evicted.

Hopefully you have a rental contract. Secondly I hope you have something in it that is similar, or can be interpreted similarly as what I described above. It is sad today that so many people have very little respect for others, but that is why we have to have contracts, laws and consequences.

Answer 10

You have a couple of options.  First off, you will be unable to force your values on someone else.  I completely agree with you about recycling, but you are not going to be able to force someone else to accept the idea

Did you sign a lease with your tenants?  If so, you are rather stuck, until the lease runs out.  About the only thing you can do is continue to give her the fines for the garbage.

If you have a month to month arrangement, raise their rent $50, effective immediately next month.  Also make them responsible for getting their OWN garbage service, and not sharing it with you.  Make it MANDATORY that they present you with a PAID garbage bill, every month (or however often it comes out).  You do not want them to be storing up garbage in the apartment.

The extra $50 a month is to pay you back for having to pick through their garbage (don't tell them that).  Them paying their own garbage bill is to teach them responsibility, and get the fines, and nasty grahms out of YOUR name.

I too had tenants in an apartment over a detached garage.  How lazy were they?  I gave them one bay of the garage to use.  They began to store garbage in that bay (which attracted scads of rats).  Rather than walk three extra steps, since I too kept the garbage cans/recycling bins by their apartment, it was easier to just toss the bags of garbage into the garage instead of the trashcan.

I was extremely ill at the time.  They moved out with no notice, and left me with tons of rat infested garbage.  I was paying the garbage bill.  Oh what fun tenants can be.

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

Answer 11

When you rent out a place you loose allot of your rights.  Basically if they are not destroying the place, not paying rent or breaking the law you have little to stand on.  Now the latter "breaking the law" you could possible use to evict them.  You have to decide if you want to put up with your current tenant or go through the hassle of finding a new one and evicting this one (if you can)?

Answer 12

Are the facilities available for her? ie. does the flat have recycling boxes for her to put things in, or just a general bin in the kitchen? Is there space? I only wonder that as I am in a small flat and struggle for space to store recycling in between our fortnightly collections - sometimes I have to make a trip to the dump and put stuff in the recycling bins there as I just don't have enough space to store it all.

Ask her to start recycling for the next collection on warning of her 3 month notice. If she doesn't recycle, serve her notice. If she wants to keep her home then she will recycle!  

Answer 13

evict her, evict her!