Waste disposal isn’t cheap if you’re a homeowner.

And if someone who doesn’t live in your household is filling up your trash cans and costing you money, you gotta put a stop to it.

A homeowner talked about what they did after their neighbor kept screwing them over in the trash department.

Let’s take a look at what’s going on here.

AITA for Making a Mess on My Neighbor’s Property.

“Long-standing feud with my neighbors putting their trash in my cans.

For context, the city picks up our trash, but we have to buy the cans from them to get the trash service (a “set” of cans…one recycling, one trash, is around 150USD…all here will be USD).

You can “inherit” cans when you buy a home, and you can also get new cans for free when you buy a home if those at the home are missing or broken.

When I bought my home, the trash can was broken and I requested a new one…and the locality also dropped off a new recycling can because the request got mixed up in their system.

So, I have one trash can in good repair, one trash can I can use in a pinch if a make a bunch of trash (it is broken but semi-usable), and two good recycling cans. In a “big” week, I might fill one trash can and one and a half recycling cans.

The locality also has strict regulations on what you put in your trash and recycling cans.

They’re pretty strict about this stuff.

For example, if one of their inspectors checked my trash can and found recyclable materials, I could be fined (I think it’s $75) for failing to properly recycle.

And vice-versa, but I think the fines for putting non-recyclable trash in the recycling can is even more (maybe $125, IIRC). You can also be fined for stuffing the cans to the point the lid doesn’t close.

The trash cans have serial numbers on them, and they fine the owner of the can, no matter who “used” it.

That’s not cool…

Not long after I moved into my house, I received a fine for recyclables being in my trash (so a $75 fine for failing to properly recycle). They send a picture along with the fine, and it was boxes that had my neighbor’s address on them.

At that point, I started going out to check my trash right before the collectors came.

On several occasions, I pulled their things out of my cans and tossed them onto their parking area so I could avoid further fines, and told the neighbors to stop putting their stuff in my cans (in person and in writing).

This process has been repeating for the *4 years* I’ve now lived here, but came to a head recently.

Jeez!

I went out to check my trash cans before trash day, and found that they had completely taken one trash and one recycling can and stuffed them completely full.

I KNEW if the collectors came and saw the cans as they were, I’d get hundreds of dollars in fines.

There were multiple problems.

They’ve had enough of this.

So, I dumped the cans out in their parking area and took the cans into my parking area. A few days ago, the neighbors got the fine for loose trash in their pickup area. It’s probably a $500 fine.

My only response to them banging on my door and doorbell at this point was to respond to their threat to call the police for vandalizing their property with “please inform them about the theft you committed when you do.””

Reddit users spoke up.

This person said they’re NTA.

Another reader agreed.

This individual shared their thoughts.

This person spoke up.

And another Reddit user shared their thoughts.

They finally had enough of dealing with these incredibly rude neighbors!

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.