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Holland admits that on occasion some of his garbage was not stored in the proper containers, but explained that falling behind one week can cause a major pileup that’s hard to come back from.

“Once you don’t have a garbage can to put everything in they’re never going to take it,” he said. “We can’t have all of that backup. Having garbage sitting around these kids is not healthy.”

Holland said repeated calls to 311 got him nowhere until someone finally listened last week and helped him clean up. But when he walked outside Tuesday morning, his garbage day, he saw his trash sitting untouched in its garbage cans.

“I did it the way everybody asked me to do it and they still won’t take it away,” he said. “It’s annoying and feels like nothing is happening. I’ve called a million and one times and last week was the first time they got back to me.”

According to Anne-Marie Albidone, manager of environmental services for the city, only one 311 service call has been recorded for Holland’s home address. In that case the family’s waste wasn’t picked up because of garbage bags stacked on top of their containers.

Albidone said it’s possible Holland’s other request were never registered because 311 call takers would have asked him how he stored his garbage and then advised him it needed to be placed in bins.

“In that case, a call like that would not generate a service request to my division,” she explained. “But the sooner people can call us and get a service request number … the sooner we can solve the issue.”

She added that environmental services staff members visited Holland’s home Tuesday afternoon and observed two “extremely heavy pails” and a single bare bag sitting out back.

Albidone said the workers cleared the trash and were hoping to speak with Holland to work through the pickup issues he’s been facing.

“Nine times out of 10, we’ll collect the garbage right then and there and let them know what to do differently,” she said. “People are wonderful and we rarely get repeats.”

dtaekema@postmedia.com