After years of bringing my garbage to the town dump in Portsmouth, I actually rather enjoyed not having to go farther than the end of my driveway when I moved to Tiverton. The glow wore off the experience of deceptively free trash collection when my one non-construction-grade barrel was demolished during pickup.
Being a believer in self-directed corrections, I went out and purchased one of those super-heavy-duty (and large) wheeled garbage barrels, and for a while, all was blissful at my curb. Then came the day that I returned home from work to find my garbage still in the barrel, with a note taped thereto highlighting the town’s maximum barrel size. So my wife went out and purchased a moderately sturdy (and smaller) wheeled barrel.
Almost immediately, the garbagemen popped a plug out of the lid, resulting in pints’ worth of maggots on certain days in the summer. Overcoming an urge to just let the trash collectors deal with it, we taped the hole. Then I found the handle half broken off after collection, and the maggots returned.
Tonight my garbage can has no handle at all. They didn’t even leave it for an attempted fix. Perhaps I can opt out and receive a tax rebate…