LETTER: You shouldn’t lose your home over unpaid garbage bills

In response to your Aug. 7 story on Republic Services and foreclosures: Something truly stinks here. Why not go after sewer service? Why not cut off water, gas and/or electricity? Most people would respond to their water, electricity or gas being cut off, and they wouldn’t be risking the potential loss of their home. Why someone would let a trash collection debt pile up to the tune of $5,000-plus is a legitimate question. Something is obviously wrong there.

Legislative provisions notwithstanding, there is something absolutely wrong — morally and ethically, though perhaps not legally — to force a resident into bankruptcy and/or potential homelessness in these perilous times because of trash collection delinquency.

Republic Services will not go out of business because of these unpaid debts. There ought to be a way to forcibly arbitrate a payment arrangement long before such threatened action occurs. In the name of decency, can we not stop and think just what we are doing?