Leaf Sweeping Season Here Too

On Monday, GM gave you some tips on how to catch sight of some glorious fall foliage. Today GM is going to give you some tips of how to get rid of it when the “fall” part of the season truly kicks in.

City Leaf Collection

Towards the end of the season, the city will send big crews around to collect leaves from the city streets. They go around slowly with what amounts to a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up all the leaves. The city asks you to rake your street leaves into tree boxes, where they will later suck them up.

How much later? The schedule for Ward 2 is below:

In short, if you’re on the east side of Wisconsin, they’ll be coming the week of Thanksgiving. If you’re on the west side, they’ll come the week after. Aim to collect the leaves into the tree boxes by the beginning of those respective weeks.

Garden Waste Collection

But let’s say you have leaves on the back of your house or you don’t want to wait for the end of Thanksgiving to get rid of the leaves. You can still have the city pick them up, but it will take an extra step or two.

The first step is to gather the leaves in a paper garden waste bag, like the ones they sell at the hardware store. Then you need to file a 311 request with the city. You can either simply use your phone to dial 311. Or you can submit the request online. When making an online request, select “Scheduled Yard Yaste”

Whether submitting over the phone or online, you will be asked for some basic information like your location and how many bags you have. (Make sure to give your exact house number. GM has mistakenly given his neighbors and they failed to take his bags). Then you will be given a date when the city will take your bags. Most times GM has done it, the date is roughly a week after the day he is submitting the request.

And finally, remember to put the bags out a day or two before the appointment, just in case they show up early.