In the town in which I live there is no public trash pick-up. We pay an independent contractor and every Wednesday night, I go out into the quiet neighborhood, weary of skunks, and I bring our junky junk to the curb. We have recycling pick-up as well. One week it is containers, the next is paper, and so on.
Here's the rub, friends. The last few weeks I have looked out in the morning to discover that we've had some additions to our recycling pile. This week there were five extra paper bags full of papers. It was a beautiful morning so I stepped out over the dewey grass and decided to investigate.
I found an envelope or magazine in each of the bags that clearly showed me the address from which they came. One bag was from Stoddard and a few were from Lawn Ave and one was from Winter. These are all streets in our neighborhood.
This gives me a strange feeling. Certainly no harm is being done to us when people drop their recycling into our pile. But, at the same time, we are paying for the service, why are these people getting a free ride. But then again, so what? I mean we would be paying no matter what. We don't pay any more because of the free-loaders. As long as their drop offs are closed up tight and don't leak papers all over our yard, what's the big beef?
I suppose the only loser in the situation is the trash company. It's kind of like splitting cable up secretly. Only the cable company loses out.
What do you all think about this? Should I do something for some reason, or should I just play dumb? I mean, I like to encourage recycling.
Oh by the by, I've also considered that I should maybe tell these folks that they might want to consider shredding their more valuable documents rather than dropping them in my yard. Today while looking for address clues, I found a few bills and a thrift fund report. But, see, if I did that, they would feel like I was threatening them. Which I'm not. I'm no indentity thief.
And neither am I.
Comments:
I saw this last night, henning, and didn't know what to say.
My first suggestion was that you switch to Pedal People, partly just 'cause they're better for the environment & 'cause it helps people accept alternatives when they see those folks on loaded-up bikes in the middle of winter, but MOSTLY 'cause then you don't have to take your stuff out to the curb. You can put it up nearer your house, 'cause the bikes roll right up there, and hopefully that would discourage freeloaders.
Here's the problem for me: I don't think it's a big deal to take advantage of the trash company by adding on extra recycling, but I DO think it's a big deal to take advantage of your neighbor. I think if the folks had come to you and said, "We see you get garbage collection. We can't really afford it right now, and are able to dump our trash at work, compost our food scraps, but we really want to recycle, do you mind if we add a few things to your pile from time to time?" (and maybe offered some exchange benefit to you), it would be okay. But sneaking is sneaking and I've got problems with that!
P.S. My home-owner neighbor issue is my next door neighbor divides their property from mine with logs. They have been rolling them further and further onto my property, effectively stealing a few feet from me. I'm too scared to say anything. But at this point, they're parking their seldom-driven, trash-laden pick-up truck practically on my kitchen table :( # posted by ina at 11:35 AM
Henning,
These people are freeloaders who are pretending to be good citizens. Don't let them get away with this uniquely 'liberal' conceit. It's like this. I work at a business that pays for a dumpster. People leave "useful" stuff outside our dumpster, because they can then rationalize it by saying "I did not abuse someone else's dumpster, I left something for someone to use." Problem with that is they leave total crap which gets kicked or smashed up by kids and we have to go and clean it up.
Ina, in about 7 years your neighbors can claim the land is theirs. They'd have to go to court to do it, but they could. Because they were using your land 'flagrantly and notoriously' without you complaining about it. It's called 'adverse possession.'
Are they likely to do this? Probably not. But still, grow a spine and deal with it. # posted by Anonymous at 3:35 PM
As one of your super-cool GOOD neighbors, I'd like to say that I think that's messed up. There's a definite taking-advantage vibe going on here, for sure.
Personally, I'd take a pile of their papers and knock on their doors and confront them about it. If they admitted to it, I'd tell them to take care of their own recycling (the recycling center is like, a mile away). If they denied it, I would recommend we call the police, since obviously some nefarious identity thief has stolen paperwork from them and abandoned it on my property. This passive-aggressive behavior would of course be for my own amusement and I wouldn't really want to call the cops. Make em squirm and hand back the papers.
These people have shown you two personality traits about themselves: 1. they are lazy 2. they are pretty dumb
I don't see any reason to be nice or courteous to them. Allowing them to dump some things will inevitably lead to them dumping more things.
In short, this situation is what Col. Sherman T. Potter would call "horse-pucky".
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