- Residents of CPT Burt Apartments in Omaha were left without dumpsters for weeks, resulting in trash — including bags, furniture, and household items — piling up in the parking lot.
- The Douglas County Health Department intervened, citing health and safety concerns, and revealed the trash bins were removed because the property management hadn’t paid their waste collection bill.
The City has since cleaned up the lot, and trash service is expected to resume now that the bill has been paid.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
For weeks, a parking lot near 30th and Burt in Omaha was overwhelmed with trash — bags of garbage, broken furniture, old clothing, and used household items — all left to rot in the open. But today, the lot is finally clean.
Residents say they were left with no other option but to dump their waste in the lot after their apartment complex’s dumpsters were removed.
“I’m 40 years old, and I ain't seen nothing like this in my entire life — except maybe at a landfill,” said Fletcher Goolsby, a resident of the CPT Burt Apartments. “I’m just like, man, that’s not good.”
Goolsby says he and his neighbors have been without trash bins for at least two months.
“We came out one day and the dumpsters were overfull. We came out the next day — and they were gone,” he recalled. “I’m like, what? Why is this happening? Then the trash just started piling up.”
Last Friday, the City of Omaha intervened and cleaned up the lot. But according to officials, the responsibility for the mess falls squarely on the shoulders of the property’s management company.
“It’s their obligation to provide sanitation and trash removal for the tenants who pay rent here,” said Councilmember Danny Begley.
The Douglas County Health Department confirmed to me that it got involved because the situation posed a serious health hazard. Officials say children were seen playing near the garbage, and elderly residents also live in the complex.
“We need dumpsters to keep the kids out of the trash,” one resident said. “Kids are curious — and we have elders that live here too.”
The Health Department also revealed that the property’s dumpsters were removed after the management team failed to pay the trash collection company. Without payment, the company pulled the bins from the premises.
Now that the bill has been paid, the health department says the trash service will resume. In the meantime, residents have been instructed to leave garbage bags outside the building until new dumpsters arrive. Once they do, maintenance crews will load the trash into them.
I reached out to CPT Burt Apartments LLC — the Illinois-based owners of the property — for comment, but have not yet received a response.
