Mayor has resident's backs over trash dispute

Naugatuck, Conn. (WTNH) - The neighbors' trash bags are gone because yesterday was trash collection day, but there are plenty of remnants, left behind from the trash bags.
 
Jeff Saguta and Jack Notar have lived in their Naugatuck house for more than 20 years. Every Monday their neighbors, who live on the private road behind them, dump their trash bags on their lawn so that the town garbage collectors pick them up.
 
"Nowhere in the deed to my house does it say we're the staging area for all the garbage," Saguta said, "so it's very frustrating to do this week after week after week and deal with this."
 
Since the neighbors don't use trash bins, which are actually required in Naugatuck, animals get into the bags and make an even bigger mess, one Jeff and Jack are left to pick up.
 
"It's very frustrating when you go to the proper authorities and nothing is getting done yet," Saguta said.
 
After our story aired, Naugatuck's mayor reached out to them.
 
"We do have every intention of finding a solution that has the least impact on everyone involved," said Mayor Bob Mezzo.
 
The mayor says because those residents live on a private road they are not entitled to town services like trash collection. The problem is those rules were ignored years ago.
 
"Someone made a choice years ago to provide a service we weren't required to, and those residents have been receiving trash pick up by putting their trash at the end of the street, which is actually in front of Mr. Saguta's property," Mezzo said.
 
It's an issue he's now working out with street commission officials and lawyers.
 
"The other option is to simply no longer collect that particular neighborhood's trash and advise those residents that they're going to have to come up with a private solution," Mezzo said.
 
The mayor says he hopes to come up with some sort of a solution in the next few days.