The Coventry families who didn't have their bins emptied on time for EIGHT monthsSeveral Coventry families were left with overflowing bins after binmen failed to pick their rubbish up on time - for almost eight months.
And a blunder between bin crews, who both thought the other was collecting the bins, was behind the chaos it has been revealed.
The residents missed more than half of their fortnightly collections after the council made the switch from weekly collections in September 2017.
The details were revealed in just one of 11 complaints upheld against the council's refuse service by the Local Government Ombudsman this year (2018).
Coventry City Council has had to pay out hundreds of pounds to residents after the Ombudsman ruled they had been caused unnecessary inconvenience.
Other failings saw a disabled resident suddenly left without assisted collections for around six months, and residents claiming they were left with maggots because of extensive missed collections.
The council was also criticised for failing to respond to complaints correctly.
In June, the Local Government Ombudsman recommended the council pay £150 to a man - named only as Mr B - after it had failed to collect his rubbish and that of five of his neighbours on time for almost eight months.
Two crews had mistakenly believed the other was collecting the bins.
But despite raising the issue with the council, the problems continued for months.
It all started after the switch to fortnightly collections last September, but the problems were not resolved until mid-April 2018.
Another complaint about the council's refuse service was upheld on April 30, 2018.
This time the council agreed to pay £150 to Mr D and give him a written apology after failing to carry out his assisted refuse collection - which sees bins taken out for those with disabilities or mobility issues - for around six months.
The problems again started when the council introduced the current fortnightly bin collections, and continued after he had reported it to the council and despite the authority issuing a reminder to crews.
The council acknowledged it had inadequate records on why it had missed the collections, and did not monitor his collections despite promising to.
It also admitted it had failed to respond to one of his complaints.
The council agreed to pay £100 to a disabled resident who was not receiving two empty bags for his recycling waste after the complaint was upheld by the Ombudsman on April 10, 2018.
The council agreed to make a "token payment" to an elderly gentleman who had several bin collections missed despite being signed up to the council's assisted collection scheme.
This included a period where the complainant said there was no collection for 12 weeks.