Residents fed up as trash piles up in Oakland Twp

OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WJBK) - The trash in Oakland Township has been sitting out for two weeks in some places.

"It's horrible, it is all over the neighborhood," said Narda Ballard. "It's been sitting there for days."

Or weeks depending on who you talk to, in Oakland Township.

The smell and the flies are starting to get worse, neighbors say.

"We have animals so the animals are starting to dig through it," Ballard said. "And it's like that is not what we paid for."

Paying is not necessarily the problem. In Oakland Township each resident contracts with a garbage hauler.  Many chose Republic but on July 31st, a new company, GFL, Green For Life (formerly Rizzo), bought all of the Oakland Township Republic contracts. 

"They don't answer their phone," said Don Henderson. "They don't answer their emails and their phones are too busy."

"I'd like to have them just come and pick up the garbage," said Ballard.

Joe Munum, the GFL director of government affairs and public relations spoke about the new service.

"Whenever we pick up new routes, there's always a few bumps," he said. "You make minor adjustments but nobody is really that inconvenienced.  But when there's a lot of garbage that haven't been picked up, those little bumps become big bumps."

Now GFL said that it's getting rid of those big bumps with extra trucks, extra crews and they understand the inconvenience of Oakland Township customers. 

"All we are saying is that the previous hauler had not altogether taken care of all these homes on these routes," said Munum. “And it left it up to us to fix that."

FOX 2 is told that the fix, meaning picking up the garbage, will take place within a couple of days.