The garbage can wars continue!

It seems that stories like this pop up on Reddit pretty regularly and each one has its own unique twist.

Read on and see what happened this time.

Oh, boy!

Steal my Bin? Hah, Lose your Home!

“I live in England, and my flat is owned by a Housing Trust, meaning it’s a rented public property (Basically a council flat).

I moved in last November and the first thing I did was to go and meet my downstairs neighbour.

Our flats are an old house, converted into flats. We both get a front door and our own front (and back) gardens. I have the upstairs flat, meaning I get a little downstairs storage space and then a nice upstairs flat & a gate into my back garden.

Downstairs flat doesn’t have inside storage space, but they get two sheds in the back garden and a back door. My flat is directly atop theirs even though our doors are side by side.

Fair enough…

Anyway, I move in and go and say hello to my neighbours. I introduce myself, explain that I have TV/Music on every hour that I’m in (for mental health reasons I can’t sit in silence) and of course I’ll try and keep it quiet, but this is a new flat, noise levels will be different to where I last lived and if it’s too loud, just come bang on my door and I’ll naturally turn it down.

My neighbour [We’ll call her Charlotte from now on] smiled and nodded and assured me that it’s fine, they’re a little loud too and the same goes for if they keep me up.

With that done, I head back up to my flat, feeling good that my neighbours were nice people. Well… I’m sure I’ll be wrong again too!

I parked my wheelie bin by the fence that divided our front garden at first, and I’d noticed that her bin was full to bursting and wondered if that was a common problem or just because Charlotte had had a massive cleanout.

Hmmm…

That was until I go to put my own bin-bags in my wheelie bin and find it full. With the exact same bags that she uses. (Not black bin bags but yellow ones for some reason, very distinctive) I brush it off, fine, annoying but whatever, and move my bin to the bottom end of my garden, by the gate, so it’s easier for me to put it out on bin day.

This works for a month and then I catch the flu. I put the bins out before it hit me hard, so on bin day, and the day after, I couldn’t get out to put my bin back in my own garden. I get better, go to fetch my bin and find… it’s in my neighbours garden. Full.

And there’s no way this could be a simple mistake, because my bin is covered in stickers. Because I’m a grown-up and I like stickers~! Anyone that looked at it would go “Oh yeah, that’s CheshireKittenBPD’s bin!”

They weren’t having this.

So I start to plot.

First stop, wait till she puts the bin out, drag it back towards my flat and get it back in my garden the second the bin-men are done because I can’t afford the fine from the council to get a new bin.

And then for the kicker. I’d noticed, while hanging out washing in our backyard (and rescuing my inside kitty when she fell outta the kitchen window) that her back shed is full of bin bags. And it was now spilling over into the garden.

Our back garden is steadily filling up with trash. And Charlotte rarely, if ever, puts out her bins, and her one is full to bursting still, her recycling boxes are overflowing (With dishes in one case, for some reason?) so it’s a pretty easy assumption that she’s just tossing her rubbish out into the back garden rather than deal with it.

So it begins.

The Revenge

I’m on the panel for the area where I live, where the residents of this Housing Agencies homes can air complaints and help decide where the money is spent.

I bring it up there, in a non-chalant “Will it stop the cut you promised me of my back garden that it’s full of rubbish?” and then when the conversation moves on, I leave it.

They were documenting everything.

I start taking pictures of the back garden, of her front, and forward them to my housing officer. The trash mountain still steadily growing and growing.

My housing officer comes around and slips into the back garden through my gate with the premise of ‘Examining for the cut’ and then sends her a warning letter.

He later tells me that she claims the trash was there when Charlotte moved in and since there’s no proof on the contrary, they’ll just come and clear it out.

‘Right.’ I think. ‘I’m gonna freaking get this!’ so I make friends with the family who’s garden borders ours where a fence panel has blown over, leaving a nice gap.

And there I hide and wait. (Their kids think I’m HILARIOUS because I’d sit in one spot in their garden and just stare at my own garden. The adults understood, they’d lived in Council properties all their lives and entirely understand bad neighbours)

And then, after three days of sitting there all day and late into the night, I finally get what I want!

There it is!

A quick video of her opening her back door and throwing out rubbish bags (not the neon yellow ones, the black ones that match the trash pile already there)

Jackpot!

I snap a few pictures of the pile, thank my new friends, and head home to email the video to my Housing Officer.

Two days go by, I’ve heard nothing but that’s normal. This is a society of red freaking tape, I had a feeling it would take a while, but I was feeling gleeful already.

A week goes by… another… suddenly we’re in February and I’m starting to think that maybe nothing’s gonna happen…

Until I get woken up by banging and clattering downstairs at 10 AM. I grumble and huff and head out to look out my front window and Lo and Behold, white van and they’re carrying out furniture.

I check my emails and there’s one from the Housing Officer.

‘Thank you for your help, steps were taken and ignored, final action is being taken’ or something along those lines.

SUCCESS!

Wow…

So I made myself a cup of tea and sat on my couch by my front window, gleefully watching them load up the white van. I even give a little wave when they notice me watching them, full on **** eating grin on my face.

Aftermath

Back garden has now been cleaned, flat is now occupied by a lovely girl who I’ve spoken to on occasion (and given the same explanation of noise, still not heard anything on that so I guess my noise level isn’t so bad!) and we chat if we’re both hanging our washing out at the same time or something.

Don’t know where Charlotte’s gone, but I bet it’s private, since if you get kicked from a Housing Association property, you aren’t getting another one.

Lesson? Don’t mess with my bin.”

And here’s how people reacted on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another reader learned something today…

This Reddit user chimed in.

Another reader had a lot to say.

Things are getting trashy out there!

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