By Michael Bushnell

Northeast News

December 30, 2016

KANSAS CITY, Missouri – What began as a billing mix-up between Northeast View Apartments and their waste disposal company sparked a social media onslaught of pictures and comments about the way Northeast View Apartments treat their tenants.

The mountains of trash began to accumulate at the Lexington and Garfield facility after a 10-yard contractor dumpster was placed on site for ongoing renovation and improvement work. Then, an untimely billing error caused the complex’s regular eight-yard trash dumpsters to not be picked up by Waste Management, the company that recently took over operation of Defenbaugh Disposal’s landfill and trash services.

According to Northeast View Office Manager Tamika Harrell, the issues have been resolved and the trash at all of Northeast View’s sites will be addressed today. When asked if Waste Management was bringing the equipment necessary to deal with not only an overflowing roll-off dumpster but also the mountains of trash that had piled up next to the dumpsters at both the Garfield and Wabash sites, she indicated that the trash contractor was aware of the issue and would take whatever means needed to resolve the issue.

“We’ve dealt with the billing issue and we’ll continue to deal with the illegal dumping issue because we don’t want to be thought of as the trashiest property in Northeast,” Harrel said. “People just think they can come on our property and use our dumpsters whenever they want. We’ll be working with the city as well as our trash contractor to ensure what you see here today doesn’t happen again.”

Northeast View was purchased in April of 2015 by Trinity Affordable Housing as part of a package of complexes that included locations in Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. According to an April 2015 Northeast News story, Trinity indicated that an $800,000 reserve had been set aside for issues such as this and other immediate improvements to the property. The company directly responsible for the management of the complex, M&M Property Management in Mobile, Alabama, is working with Trinity to correct a number of the issues that currently exist on site.