Just realized the city's bulk trash pickup schedule in Decatur is a whole hidden system
I went to the sanitation office on Trinity Place last Tuesday to ask about hauling off an old water heater, and the woman behind the counter pulled out a laminated map that showed the whole city split into zones I never knew existed. Turns out my street gets bulk pickup on the second Wednesday of the month, which I'd been guessing at for two years and getting wrong half the time. She also told me you have to call 48 hours ahead or they just drive past your pile, which explains a lot about the couch that sat on my curb for 3 weeks in March. I asked if the city website has this map and she laughed, so I took a photo of her laminated one with my phone. Now I'm wondering how many other services work like this, where the info exists but only in a drawer somewhere. Has anyone else had luck just walking into a city office and asking, or did I get lucky with the person I got?