Bears in Garbage

[Katelyn22]

Hello all. I live in the catskills and bears have been getting into our garbage. We have guests staying for the month of July, and ordered a tuffboxx to hopefully resolve this issue, but it is taking forever to ship and certainly wont be here on time. Do you ask your guests to take trash to the transfer station? Our garage is usually off-limits to guests, but thinking of keeping the cans in there and asking them to bring it to the end of the driveway on trash pickup day.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[Anonymous]

@Katelyn22  I have no bear-specific advice, but you win the award for the day's most amusing post title!

A lot of remote hosts have trouble getting guests to adhere to trash removal policies, especially those that involve taking it to another location. Perhaps the possibility of confronting a bear would be a good motivator to follow the instructions. But as a general rule, the simplest and easiest-to-follow method has the highest chance of success. If you can't be there to manage the waste removal yourself - or if this service is beyond your pay grade, so to speak - I think letting guests use a designated portion of your garage would be the way to go. 

[Katelyn22]

Thanks for the response Andrew - just seeing this. For anyone who happens to stumble along this post with the same issue, here was our solution. https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200762384_200762384?cm_mmc=Google-pla&utm_source=Goo...

This bear proof box along with a private sanitation pickup!

[Lorna170]

@Katelyn22   We live in the mountains of North Carolina.  Bears are daily visitors.  We don't have trash pickup; all trash is taken off-site by our staff at the end of a rental.  For a month long rental we would have the guest place the trash in a secure location, like the garage you mentioned, and we would have our staff come by once a week to take it to the transfer station.  His time would be factored into the rent charged.  So glad that you were able to arrange a private pickup!

[Nathan3673]

I'd love to know who you use. We are looking for a service like this in Black Mountain.

[Lorna170]

@Nathan3673  Not a service.  This is an arrangement with our housekeeping staff.  We pay her son $25 per trash pickup to drive the guest trash to the Buncombe Transfer station (as well as the per bag fee).