Help Me Hank: Help Me Hank! Trash trouble

Beautiful mountains, terrific weather, a cozy place to stay- You'll find it all in Vermont at Carolyn's bed and breakfast!
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B owner
"It's nice, I get to meet a lot of different people from all over the country."
 
Carolyn has two charming rooms, which she keeps stocked with reading materials for her guests.
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
"There's a lot of magazines in each room, they pile up."
 
While she'd rather be tending to her inn, occasionally she does journey out of state.
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
"I come to Boston about three times a year, maybe four if I go to a Red Sox game."
 
And that's why this green ticket she got in the mail was such a surprise. It cited her for "illegal dumping of trash" at an address in Boston's Back Bay. Weird since she'd never been at that address. But the fine was 1,000 dollars!
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
"I live in Vermont why would I dump trash in Boston, that's kind of preposterous."
 
Carolyn had a solution; maybe a Bay State guest had swiped something with Carolyn's address on it.
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
"Somebody took a magazine and then just discarded it."
 
Carolyn called Inspectional Services to check into it, but the only answer she got was if you think it's wrong, appeal it! So she typed up a letter, and she also did one more thing.
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
"And so I sent in an e-mail to Help Me Hank."
 
Hank Phillippi Ryan, Investigative Reporter
"This is Hank Phillippi Ryan."
 
We called Boston's Inspectional Services, their force of 15, also known as the trash cops are in charge of finding illegally dumped garbage and tracking down the owner.
All it takes is one address label in a bag and you could be fined a thousand dollars!  We got to see the evidence in Carolyn's case from this trash bag: a magazine label with her name and address on it.
 
Hank Phillippi Ryan, Investigative Reporter
"It's clearly a mistake, correct?"
 
We explained about Carolyn's B&B and that any guest could have dumped a purloined periodical in the Back Bay. Inspectional Services took a second look and agreed to vouch for Carolyn at her appeal hearing. And soon after, ticket dismissed.
 
Now Carolyn can go back to tending her B&B, but she's being a little more careful with her mail.
 
Carolyn Handy, B&B Owner
Now I probably spend 15 minutes a day just shredding stuff that has my name on it.
 
Hank Phillippi Ryan, Investigative Reporter
Inspectional Services is just trying to keep Boston clean and issues more than 40,000 tickets a year for violations.
 
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