TROY – The city is studying ending its annual eight-week spring cleanup program and merging it into a daily street cleaning program, city officials said Thursday.

The consideration of changing street cleaning comes as the city faces having to deal with trash that wasn’t completely picked up because of bad winter weather and landlords not maintaining their properties.

Councilman Mark McGrath pointed to uncollected trash in the alleys and dirt piled up in some streets. Lansingburgh has the worst problems.

"The city is a mess," he said.

City code enforcement has conducted about 300 inspections and reinspections of trash and garbage complaints in January and February, said John Salka, a spokesman for Mayor Patrick Madden.

When it comes to cleaning the streets, General Services Commissioner Charles Wojton said, Th e Department of Public Works "is out there.”

Some of the trash littering alleys, where most residents put out their garbage cans for city pickup, is due to landlords and tenants not properly disposing of trash and picking up, Wojton said.

Salka and Wojton said the city annually faces having to deal with trash not cleaned up during the winter months. The city urges residents to contact DPW and code enforcement to file complaints about properties with garbage.

“We need help from the community,” Wojton said.

The spring cleanup deals with the issues of streets clogged with sand from the winter as well as trash buildup in the alleys.

The city is looking at making the cleaning program more efficient, which could save money. The details haven’t been worked out.

The city would still notify residents when specific neighborhoods would see additional work that would require changes in area parking rules to allow the cleanup to proceed. By merging the annual spring cleanup with the normal street cleaning schedule, officials anticipate cleaning being done when vehicles would normally be moved out of the way.

People who have complaints about trash and garbage should call code enforcement at 518-270-4404 or the DPW dispatcher at 518-270-4579.