MINNEAPOLIS — It's 7:30 p.m. Monday night. The sun had just gone down, and an SUV with a long trailer full of junk pulls into a north Minneapolis alley. Surveillance video shows two people get out, and dump at least three pieces of furniture right there.
"It's pretty frustrating," said a neighbor on the block.
Illegal dumping is a problem KARE 11 News has heard of from a lot from Minneapolis residents. And city officials say it's been a problem for some time.
"It's demeaning to have your neighborhoods messed up in any way. And Minneapolis is a proud city. We're proud of how clean it is, and we want to keep it that way," the neighbor said.
"Absolutely. We definitely feel for them. It remains a battle we see every day," said Nick Gerold, general foreman for Minneapolis Solid Waste & Recycling.
In another video shows a box truck unloading a refrigerator and pulling away.
And photographs show a totaled Porsche dropped in a Minneapolis alley for someone else to clean up.
Surveillance cameras throughout these alleys do little to deter them.
Neighbors and City Officials suspect as least some of the junk is dumped by people who live outside the city limits, because they know Minneapolis will pick it up.
"Rather than drive to a dump, they just use the alley as their own personal dump," the neighbor said.
Each resident in Minneapolis is allowed to throw out two large items like mattresses every week. That's included in their garbage bill.
But if the junk dumped by someone else goes beyond that free number, and the resident can't haul it to a city dumping site, then Gerold said the resident is stuck holding the bill.
"You would hope those doing this would respect their neighbors. Unfortunately, it doesn't always happen that way," Gerold said.
Residents are asked to call 311 to report illegal dumping.