YORK COUNTY, Pa. — Lower Windsor Township residents in York County are frustrated as they say their trash collection company has not picked up their garbage in nearly a month.
"It's just been a nuisance for us but also the neighborhood," said homeowner Glenn Blue.
Blue and his wife Peggy have lived in the Wrightsville area for the past decade and say trash pickup has remained a consistent problem. They allege Penn Waste has not emptied their dumpster, filled with cardboard boxes and garbage bags, in three weeks.
"It drives you a bit bonkers...it's embarrassing," said Glenn Blue. "You don't want everyone seeing your trash."
The couple, who pays a little more than $100 per quarter for trash pickup, said after Penn Waste failed to arrive on the scheduled day, the company agreed to collect the Blues' trash on a different occasion. However, Penn Waste still did not show and did not provide a warning.
"I would prefer if they at least communicate that to us," Glenn Blue added.
With recent strong winds, the Blues said they frequently have to monitor their garbage can to prevent trash from flying across the neighborhood. They said they have even left some of the waste inside their home.
"It's going to attract critters," said Peggy Blue. "Who wants trash piling up in their garage?"
Penn Waste provided this statement regarding the disruptions:
We apologize for the service interruptions Lower Windsor Township has experienced recently. Despite on-site preventative measures, the resurgence of COVID-19 has impacted our workforce over the last several weeks.
For the wellbeing of our employees and our community, our employees are instructed to not report to work if they test positive for COVID-19 or are quarantining while waiting for test results.
We have seen a decrease in cases in the last week so we do expect normal operations to resume in the near future.
Additionally, as many people already know from local and national media reports, severe labor shortages have been brought on by the COVID pandemic and governmental preventative measures. We are actively recruiting new talent and implementing operational changes to address these challenges and will continue to do so.
We also had two snow-related weather events that impacted all of our operations which caused delays.
When routes are delayed or canceled, we post these changes on our website homepage and our phone message. We encourage our customers to contact us directly if they have any questions about their particular services.
However, after repeatedly calling Penn Waste for refunds and credits, the Blue family is demanding changes.
"All I want is our trash picked up and to receive the service we are paying for," said Peggy Blue.
Other neighbors said they are strongly considering switching to another trash collection company.