Valet Trash Service
Residents at The Club at Indian Creek are required to pay for valet trash service. This sounds like a good idea, and for some, a great value at $25 per month or $300 per year. It's not a service that I want, as I recycle and compost and generate very little trash, but I understand why The Club requires it.
There are 274 apartments in the complex. At $25 per month (there are a lot of vacancies as turnover seems to be pretty high) that's less than $7000 per year. I suppose that's kind of a bargain for a years worth of trash service except that residents don't seem to actually using the service.
One of the deciding factors in moving here for me was on-site recycling. This is a service included in Valet Trash, so I weighed my resignation at paying for the service against looking for an apartment without Valet Trash that would also allow Max, my 100 lb dog.
I move in, put my first bag of trash out, where it remains for several days. I open a maintenance request asking why. My trash was bagged in a dog food bag. It was not filled all the way and the top was rolled closed so that trash wouldn't fly everywhere. But this is why it remained in the hallway. I am required to purchase a new trash bag that can be tied closed. I don't agree and feel that I should be able to reuse bags that are headed to the landfill anyway, but OK.
Office staff kindly gave me, as an example, two of the bags required for recycling pick up. I dutifully purchase some and put my recycling in the hall as directed, where it remained for several days. Again, I open a maintenance request asking why my recycling isn't getting picked up and am told the bags are too full and they have to be tied completely closed.
This makes no sense, as bagged recycling goes directly to the landfill and does not get recycled. This is common knowledge but I check my thinking with Johnson County Health and Environment. Not only is it true, JCHE offers to call The Club to discuss corporate recycling programs that work. When JCHE reports back, they've been told by office staff not to worry because the trash service is unbagging all recycling.
I have photographic images of bagged recycling in the only two, (of 23 total) recycling dumpsters on The Club property. But let's assume a resident improperly disposed of those bags. I'm still required to purchase a non-recyclable bag that then goes directly to the landfill. This obviously defeats the purpose of recycling.
Now that I'm here, I don't use the Valet Trash service at all. I take my recycling to my sister's house where she enjoys unbagged, curbside recycling. I also take my own trash out, usually when I've disposed of something that might encourage Max to investigate.
When I moved in the office manager told me residents here don't recycle and I found her comment curious. On any given day you'll see people taking their own trash out. On multiple occasions I've observed my upstairs neighbor loading trash bags into his car, so I asked him why he doesn't use the valet service. “They're slow and lazy.” I'm not sure what this means, but that's what he said.
While recycling may not be important to you, I bring this issue to light as one example of a service residents of The Club pay for, but don't receive. The attitude of office staff is that the service is required and it doesn't matter that it's not working. They won't fix it.