75-Year-Old Man Secretly Returns Garbage Cans To Garages

February 9, 2022

It was a mystery for weeks in a neighborhood in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.

On garbage days, bins suddenly appeared back at their garages.

mystery garbage man wisconsin
Dick Pontzloff

"It was so strange because all of a sudden our garbage cans were just showing up," Melody Luttenegger said.

"We have such a long driveway and I thought maybe the garbage company is bringing our garbage," she told Local 5's Barrett Tryon. "I asked my husband, and he's like, 'no, I'm not bringing the garbage cans up'."

Melody was determined to find out who it was. The day before Christmas Eve, she bundled up and waited outside after the garbage truck left.

It turns out, a 75-year-old man who lives a few streets over is the person responsible for the act of kindness.

"When I retired, I got sick of doing nothing, so I started going around and picking up garbage cans. Not just certain ones, everyone's," Dick Pontzloff said.

He rides his bike through the neighborhood, stopping at each house to walk the bin up the driveway.

"For someone random to just do that, it doesn't go unnoticed," said Melody. "You know the kindness that strangers give is an unexplainable feeling. And he doesn't even realize how nice of a gesture it is and how much we appreciate it."