LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Some residents in Lake County have been worried a bear problem could be made worse by new county-required trash cans.
Residents said bears are causing a mess and it's all because of the new cans.
Channel 9's Roy Ramos found some residents are going to "MacGyver" lengths in an effort to keep the bears out of the trash cans, which apparently aren't bear proof.
"You open the gate and the bear is standing there. I don't really want to be there," said Astor Park resident Sue Linart.
Some residents on Sunset Drive awoke Monday to find a 400-pound black bear going through their county-issued garbage cans.
"It can be bad," said resident John Linart. "You'll see three or four houses where the garbage has been strung all over their yards."
Monday was the first day for the county's curbside garbage pickup system, but residents have been complaining about the cans since September when they learned they wouldn't be bear-proof.
"If you come out and you don't know that he's out, that'll be the end of you," Sue Linart said of the bear.
Some residents have found their own way to secure the containers, but it's not ideal for the workers picking up the trash.
"(I) took a piece of cord, put it on the bottom, (brought) it through the top and I just put a slip knot in it," said John Linart.
Channel 9 took the concerns of residents to the county, which said they were planning on using a contracted hauler to pick up garbage from bear-proof containers purchased by residents.
"We are going to work with the haulers to be able to pick those up, but until we know where the cases are, we are tracking each one of them like we are tracking everything else," said Lake County Public Works director Jim Stivender.
The county told Channel 9 it did not issue bear-proof trash cans because the bears only affected about 10 percent of their population.