Kirk Gillon watched city sanitation workers in action last week, and what they did made no sense to him.

Workers on Thursday pulled their garbage truck into the lane between 49th and 50th streets at Bull to empty nearly a dozen trash containers. Some had tipped over - at least one by a dog Gillon saw rear up against the container.

Workers emptied the bins, but didn't pick up the piles of garbage. When Gillon asked if they would, he said, they told him trash on the ground required a special pickup.

As they left, they drove over some of the strewn garbage. Gillon, an editor and freelance television cameraman, took photos as they went.

"It's annoying," he said. "No one wants to live in a dump. I understand they have to draw the line somewhere, but I just wouldn't drive by and leave it."

Stephanie Cutter, the city's director of sanitation, saw the photos Friday afternoon. She said, usually, workers should not have picked up the garbage.

"We have to determine the source. You just can't continue to clean up after people," she said. "If they had to do that in every lane every day, they wouldn't have time to pick up garbage in the rest of the city."

The crew followed proper procedure by notifying a supervisor to request a sanitation code enforcement officer, Cutter said.

At 11:11 a.m. Friday, a code enforcement officer on patrol noticed the garbage, found an address in it and issued a courtesy cleanup notice to a renter in a nearby apartment, Cutter said.

By Friday afternoon, the renter had cleaned the garbage on the south side of the lane and was in compliance. Because no owner could be determined for the garbage on the north side, it was cleaned by city workers who came out Friday afternoon, Cutter said.

Under city ordinance, property owners are responsible for maintaining a lane from their lot to the midpoint of the lane, Cutter said. Property owners need to hold their renters accountable because, if they do not, the property owner eventually is the one cited, Cutter said.

The crew working Thursday should have cleaned up the spilled garbage once Gillon told them a dog had toppled the trash, Cutter said.

"It's a judgment call," she said. "They should have taken his word for it."

Gillon said spilled garbage has been a problem in the year he's lived at his apartment. He has cleaned the lane about 10 times and has called the city in the past to try to get the problem solved.

He was a little overwhelmed Friday when Cutter, two sanitation inspectors and a full garbage crew arrived.

"I was surprised actually at the rapid response," he said. "I think when they saw the photos they realized it was an issue."