Dinkytown or Stinkytown? Trash mounds anger residents

The piles of garbage around Dinkytown got so bad this week that resident Sonny Schneiderhan took to the street.

Armed with a camera and a growing sense of outrage, she chronicled the mess left behind as students decamped from their apartments and dorm rooms ahead of the incoming wave of new arrivals.

Her photos show garbage piled high on street corners and at the ends of driveways. The mounds of boxes, broken furniture and trash-filled bags stand next to overflowing garbage cans meant for weekly trash service.

"They could hire a Dumpster," said Schneiderhan, who wants the University of Minnesota to help clean up and control the mess.

The annual trash-out has become a rite of passage in Dinkytown, she said, one that wouldn't be allowed anywhere else.

"It's worse this year," she said.

A city spokesman said on Wednesday that the city has had crews in the Dinkytown neighborhoods since Aug. 27 looking for extra trash.

Told that the garbage has been piling up in some places for as long as a week, he said that the three-day Labor Day weekend may have slowed the pickup somewhat.

The city also had sent an e-mail Aug. 20 warning property owners that they would be billed for extra garbage cleanup. It encouraged owners to plan for the garbage mess by, among other things, hiring city crews at a rate of $181 an hour to clean up properties.

To see more photos and read the city letter which contained other suggestions on how to deal with the piles of unwanted furniture, clothes and other material, go to www.startribune.com/a1701.