the trials of not-quite-suburban living
I’ve bitched about our neighbors before and, shockingly, I still hate them.
For whatever reason, they can’t get their act together enough and put their garbage out the night before, like you’re supposed to, or even early in the morning before the garbage truck comes. No. They wait until after the garbage truck does their half of the street and then they trot their crap across the street and put it with our garbage.
I really can not articulate how angry this makes me. It’s silly, I know, because garbage is garbage and whatever. I’m neighborly. But this is every week that they do this. And god knows what kind of shady shit they have in their garbage.
I think my rage stems from earlier this summer when they missed both garbage pickups and instead of just holding onto their garbage for a week, they put it on our curb anyway. Where it killed our grass and stank up the whole block because there was a bag of poopy diapers.
AND this week they have two bags of garbage in blue grocery store bags and let me tell you that this is a huge problem. The garbage men won’t take blue bags because those are the recycling bags and it is not recycling week. So help me, if I get home and those two bags are still sitting there I’m going to do something really immature.
Like, it’s not enough that these assholes forced me to listen to Creed for an hour one night and just generally seem like shitty people and don’t comfort their crying baby EVER. I have to be responsible for their trash??!?!?!?!?!? THIS IS SERIOUS DRAMAZ!
September 16th, 2008 at 11:36 am
dude i feel you. our neighbors like to sit white kitchen trashbags full of rank on the curb THE NIGHT BEFORE trash day, so squirrels and rats and other vermin and get into them and spill everything out onto the pavement, depositing wads of trash up and down the block. IT MAKES ME ALL STABBY. HOMICIDAL RAGE: I HAS IT.
TRASHCAN. LOOK INTO IT. how fucking hard is it to get a stupid trashcan? GRRAAGHHH!
September 16th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
We have neighbors that we refer to as ‘the garbage people’ because they always have shit strewn across their lawn after every pickup. Everyone else seems to be able to keep their garbage in check, but somehow there is always shreds of tissue and a condom lying in front of their house.
You should enact some garbage retaliation!
September 16th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I don’t know how it works around your parts, but we get charged extra for extra bags of trash, so if neighbors were all putting their trash out with ours, we’d politely walk it back to their house with a note letting them know that we didn’t want to, you know, pay for their trash.
But, ummmm, maybe I’m bitter?
September 16th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I would totally have my husband throw the trash back in their yard late at night. Trust me, they will get it. You can even attach a note– I used to work for the Community Law Center and we used this tactic all the time. You already know the types of issues that stem from not putting your trash out at the proper time. Trust me, it’s a big deal, especially if the trash men are not picking it up.
Once you throw the trash back in their yard, call 311 and complain about their backyard.
BTW, I wouldn’t have suggested the note or the call to 311, but CREED?? Come on, they totally deserve it!
September 17th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
ohh, I did not know of this 311 that you speak of. thanks! and don’t you agree that there should be some specific ordinance against Creed?
September 16th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
oh yes. it would totally be back on their front porch. aflame, if the mood struck me properly, or if they continued their poopy-diaper assault on your senses and sidewalk.
i know it’s a cliche, and overused at that, but whoever said “hell is other people” could not have been more right.
September 17th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Ugh. Shitty neighbors are the worst. We have some that always put out their trash, like, 4 days before the pickup (luckily they keep it on THEIR property), and they’ve had a pile of huge dug-up (and now dead) shrubbery in the alley for weeks (trash guys won’t take it). Even more charming was earlier this year, when their yard was entirely coated in dog shit. I’m talking, there were 4-foot weeds growing out of visible piles of shit, and when the wind shifted, it nearly knocked you out. Eventually they took care of it.
I recommend calling 311 – it really works. After all, like Cassie said: CREED.
(Oh, and the online 311 form works too. Personal response and everything.)
September 17th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
hey jule. blue bags tuhmarruh. bye.