Saturday, December 29, 2012

Eureka Garbage Bills Climbing

Just received my bill from Eureka City Garbage (Recology) and was surprised to see the total for 3 months was $72.39. Wasn't it around $68.00 last time? Actually, taking a look at my last bill it was $69.59. It has gone up but not as much as I'd thought.

Looking back further, though, it was $68.19 back in 2009 when we first signed up for the green waste bin. That broke down to $3.00 a month for the green waste and $17.33 for weekly trash pick up (20 gallon container). Now, it's $3.60 for green waste and $20.53 a week for trash pick up.

On the bright side, maybe, is I could have sworn they were also charging $3.00 a month for recyclables pick up. I don't see that anywhere on the bill. I must have misunderstood how that worked. Maybe what they were saying is that you're paying for garbage service whether you wanted it or not, not recycling?

That's still at least a one dollar increase each year. Garbage bills will be sky high before we know it at that rate. That's why we dumped Cox Cable a few years ago. Their charges went up about a dollar year, too. The problem is, due to the infinite wisdom of the Eureka City Council, we have no alternative with garbage service since they mandate it.

11 Comments:

At 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was snookered in McKinleyville.

I went from a 35 gallon to 45 gallon can and they upped the monthly charge. Fine, except I didn't notice they don't have a rate for a 45 gallon can, so they charged me the 65 gallon rate.

For the past two years I've been making separate trips to the dump once a month to get rid of what wouldn't fit in my 45 gallon can. That's a few hundred dollars I could have saved myself. I noticed it only after they instituted curbside recycling and moved everyone to new cans.

 
At 1:47 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes, "sky high" at a $1 per year increase, at least as Fred reckons it.

 
At 3:43 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

You laugh, but that's how things work. You don't pay much attention and next thing you know you're paying a lot more than you were originally.

Like Cox Cable. Some years ago I decided to cut back on cable service since the wife wasn't around much and I don't watch a lot of TV. The plan I was on had gone up to $50.00 or more, if memory serves me.

I went in and changed to their cheapo plan: $9.95, I believe it was, although it ended up being around $16.00 after taxes and fees.

About 3 years later the wife expressed interest in satellite TV. It started with a teaser deal of $24.95 a month for 120 channels. I hadn't paid attention to what I was paying for cable so took a look. That $9.95/$16.00 plan I signed up for had increased to about $24.00 in just 3 years.

We switched to satellite. Their cost went up $5.00 due to the TV stations increasing charges. Other than that we haven't seen any increases.

So, $72.50 for garbage service now. Five years from now it will be $77.50, or more, if the trend continues. Unlike cable TV, we can't really get out of garbage service so easily since the city forced it on us.

Of course, that's one example of crony capitalism the lefties like, isn't it?

 
At 4:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The silly thing about the 'cheapo' plan is that it's almost entirely broadcast channels. You would be amazed at how many young people know *nothing* about over-the-air broadcast channels. They've used cable TV their entire lives and don't even know you can buy $20 rabbit ears, plug 'em in, and get 10 to 20 free channels.

Buy a $50 Roku and you've got yourself live CNN International, BBC News, Al Jazeera, etc. Not to mention Netflix, Hulu, Prime, etc.

 
At 6:41 PM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

I actually looked into that some time ago:
http://humboldtlib.blogspot.com/search?q=broadcast+channels

Hey, I grew up on broadcast so that would be no problem for me. Gave up on the idea not long after when I read that the TV stations were planning on not supporting broadcast TV anymore. I have a post on that somewhere but don't have time to look for it now.

 
At 8:13 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Free over-the-air TV is not only alive and well, but the number of stations is growing across the country.

It's cable channels that are in trouble. If/when the FCC mandates a la carte subscription plans, customers will pick which channels they want to pay for, and a plethora of cable channels will disappear due to lack of viewers. A great many channels depend on being packaged in a bulk set of channels that consumers pay for.

 
At 7:58 AM, Blogger Steve Lewis said...

Speaking of garbage, can I interrupt this program for an important announcement? At least to me and my kind? Eric Kirk, the Awful, who routinely engages in political censorship of critics, is again censoring my posts critical of his dastardly politics on his SoHum Parlance blog. His tag-team partner in intellectual fascist crime is Mitch over there running Heraldildo as the other main Prog propaganda blog in Humboldt County. These Proggies don't like people reading the comments showing them up as the carpet-baggers come to make their political careers as generals in the enviro-Prog yuppie class war against Humboldt County's working class and poor.

Well, I show 'em, by golly. Nothing pisses off a real radical activist more than censorship of free speech for political reasons. Posts of mine that Eric or Mitch delete are posted on my Steve Lewis blog at: steve-lewis@blogspot.com.

 
At 7:07 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nobody cares Steven

 
At 11:32 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You laugh..."
Yes, Fred, I do. You are hilarious.

 
At 2:14 PM, Blogger Steve Lewis said...

Wong. I care and what I care about matters to the whole world. Jeez, why is it that so many find it hard to agree with my delusions of granduer? It's really upsetting.

 
At 8:49 AM, Anonymous City Container Services said...

I care plenty, great post Steve.

-Land Source Container Service, Inc.

 

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