UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE — UPDATE

The roll-off container is gone from Mikado Drive. The landlords and Bestway have settled their dispute and the container was picked up Wednesday afternoon.

Landlord Don Houger says he agreed to pay half the $361 tab because he added to the roll-off container load with trash he hauled out of the house.

Houger said the tenant ruined carpets, punched holes in walls, left rotting food in the refrigerator and caused considerable damage in the house before she left.

“Bestway was real nice about it,” Houger said. “We got it all settled. It’s all taken care of.”

Now he said it’s time to get to work repairing the damage.

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The folks at Bestway Disposal seemingly lost their minds for a moment last week.

 They had delivered a roll-off container to a house in Rockrimmon on Mikado Drive and the woman customer loaded it with garbage, tires, furniture and other trash.

She paid with a bad check and left in the middle of the night. Classy.

Bestway wanted its money and went after the landlords, Don and Jean Houger, for payment of the deadbeat tenant’s debt. They declined to pay so Bestway took its container and left.

Problem is, they left the trash in the driveway.

A nice, big, stinking, leaking nasty pile of garbage. 

Imagine how the neighbors felt when they saw the mess, knowing their children would be coming home from school and the abundant wildlife in the Rockrimmon neighborhood would be coming out at night to investigate.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Here’s a look at the neighborhood from www.FlashEarth.com:

Bestway’s Phil Kiemel said the company had no choice but to dump and run.

“We did the logical thing,” Kiemel said.

                Too bad Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator for Colorado Springs, didn’t agree with Kiemel’s logic. He said what Bestway did was a crime punished by a $500 fine and 90 days in jail.

Before the day was over, Bestway had a crew of five, a new roll-off container and a truck on the scene, cleaning up the mess.

 In these photos, supplied by Bestway, crews clean the driveway before replacing the roll-off container and the trash. 

 Sounds like a happy ending, right? Not yet.

The neighbors are stuck looking at the roll-off container which now is full of trash because the Hougers have filled it with garbage they hauled out of their rental house.

The Hougers agree they should pay part of the bill, since they added to its load. But they are balking at paying the full bill saying they aren’t responsible for the tenant’s debts.

Meanwhile, neighbors live with the mess. And they say it’s an example of the dangers of having rental properties in the neighborhood. They doubt the Hougers — who have numerous rental properties in the city — would stand for the mess if they had to live with it.

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