The Editor,
On April 19, the wheel on my green cart was badly damaged as shown in the picture that I’m sending with this letter. I’m not happy that the sides were badly banged up as well but the cart is still usable if I could just get someone from the city of Coquitlam to fix the wheel.
I called early on the following Monday, thinking that would give them two days to do the work before I needed the cart again. I was told that I needed to take pictures and email them in so they would know what needed to be done. I was given a file number and email address, and took and sent the pictures immediately after my call.
Two weeks later, I called again. This time, I was told by a rather dismissive employee that I was told the work could take up to three weeks so why was I calling before that time was up. Well, I was told no such thing and couldn’t imagine that so many carts are so carelessly damaged each week that the city has a three-week backlog for repairs.
I explained that we have a steep driveway and my husband has had a stroke and recent serious knee surgery, so I have no one to help me drag this cart up the hill between the hours of 5:30 and 7:30 a.m. I begged them to try to do this for me as soon as possible.
On May 19 — one month after my cart was damaged and 26 days since I had sent the requested photos — I called again and was promised that someone would be here on Monday, May 22. I realized later that was going to be a holiday so I didn’t expect help until Tuesday.
Well, it is now June 1 — 44 days since my cart was damaged — and I’m still waiting.
It seems almost every week someone from the city manages to find the time to do an interview with the newspaper to remind us about garbage issues. The city manages to put together teams to patrol our neighbourhoods to find and fine, or embarrass with stickers, people who aren’t sorting their garbage properly or have it out too early, or are watering on the wrong day or at the wrong time, but not the time to fix a wheel that was damaged by careless garbage pickup by a city contractor.
Friends have suggested I start calling every day. I don’t have time to wait on hold for half an hour or to stay home waiting for a callback. But I have thought of dragging my cart into city hall and trading it for the nice new one on display in the engineering department. Or even better, now that we have our property tax bills, I may drag it up and down the street in front of city hall with a sign on it that says: “Here’s Your Tax Dollars at Work for Seniors!”
Elaine Myers, Coquitlam
