I think this is a sighting....

[Erin]

If it's not a sighting, can someone put it in the appropriate spot?

For a long time now, several neighbors of ours have noticed that there's a person from up the street from us, who seems to have a habit of dumping their garbage in our garbage cans. (our neighborhood is county. We pay for a private company to pick up our trash. I dont know if these people are city or county, so I dont know if they're just too cheap to pay the private service, or why they dont use the city trash service if they're city.)

The people dumping their trash in ours are NOT part of our particular association. These people are about a half mile up the road in a different HOA. I'm pretty sure their house is in the city, but I cant find any information to confirm if they're city. (my little neighborhood hasnt been assimilated yet) If they're city, they already pay for their trash pickup thru taxes. (and theirs should be picked up on monday)

So, they're pretty much committing theft of services everytime they dump their crap in with our crap. There's a limit to what our private trash service will pick up and if they're dumping their crap with our crap, they could put us over the limit.

Today my parents noticed that they chose our trash bin as their dumping ground. My mom heard their car door slam and looked out the window to see them drive off. I went out there and picked thru their recyclables and found several pieces of mail with their address on it. I now know who it was, and exactly where they live.

I'm torn between taking their trash back or using public humiliation in some way to get them to stop. What I'll probably do is report them to our homeowners association and let them deal with it for us.

So, does this count as a sighting? Any suggestions for getting them to stop? Using our HOA to get them to quit, or would public humiliation be more fun?

At least today they didnt throw their nasty bathroom trash in our bin. I'm still grossed out that they dumped their trash full of used feminine hygiene products in our trash a few weeks ago and it came open and got all over the place...on the street and in our bin...Yuck!

[Flying Grype]

Public humiliation just opens the door for childish revenge antics on both sides. Don't let it escalate. Deal with it through the proper channels so that only one party looks bad.

[Mystic]

I'd also file a report with the police. If they stop doing it to you, they will start with someone else. Better to cut them off at the pass.

[draftermatt]

Unless they're members of your HOA all they'll be able to do is a) direct you to the police or b) write them a letter asking them to stop.

You're better off notifying the HOA and just contacting the police on the non-emergency line and see what they say.

[MaggieTheCat]

I agree with going to the police. As Grype said, public humiliation could get you in trouble, and I don't think an HOA has enough authority to enforce anything on these people, especially if they don't live in your HOA. Besides that, from what I understand, a lot of HOAs are not good about following up on complaints made by members (not saying that yours is like this, but if they are, then you'd be back to square one anyway.)

Edit: Alternately, I suppose you could also approach the people directly, tell them politely that you don't think it's appropriate that they dump their trash in your bins, that it could cause trouble with your trash pickup company, and remind them that they already have trash pickup through the city (on the off-chance that they don't realize they have trash pickup. It just seems odd to me that someone would go out of their way to dump their trash in a more inconvenient spot if they can have it done right outside their own house.) Of course, if they ignore you and continue doing it and then you call the cops, they may figure out who got them in trouble and try to retaliate.

[Erin]

I'm going to email our HOA...maybe our HOA can get in touch with their HOA...or maybe our HOA can send a Cease & Desist. I know these people have been dumping their trash in more than just our bin. They seem to really like our bin or our next door neighbor's bin, and dont seem to use the other houses bins. I dont know if they have a ton of trash and just spread it out across several houses.

I guess we must just be right in a good convenient spot for them to add their crap to our crap.

I just dont understand why they dont use their own trash service.

[freeatlast]

I live in a town where each household is responsible for contracting for their trash pickup. It is not cheap, and you are limited to a specific number of bags you can put out without being charged extra. One of my neighbors would wait until I left for work each trash pickup day, and bring her bags out and set them around my trash can. My daughter saw her do it and called me. I already had BIG problems with this neighbor - she had a teenage son who exposed himself to my daughter, she had big drug & alcohol parties for all of her son's teenage friends every weekend and their were frequent loud fights between her and whichever man was living there that week. So I told my daughter to gather up all of the bags of trash and take them over and throw them at that neighbor's front door. My daughter did as I told her and one of the other neighbors watched to make sure that they were not put back in my yard. That evening, I went over to confront her but she refused to answer her door. I ended up calling her landlord to complain and shortly after that she was evicted. My complaint was the straw that broke the camel's back, as far as the landlord was concerned.

[Erin]

I talked to my aunt tonight (she lives across the street from me, is on the HOA board) and she said that she wants to talk to the other neighbors who've noticed this person putting trash into other people's bins and see what they say.

She's afraid that if she says something to the trash-dumper in an official way, they'll go after the most recent recipient of his trash. I thought she had a good point, so we're just going to keep an eye on stuff...collect evidence if we see them putting their trash in our bins. (mail with their address on it) If I'm up and awake on trash day, I'll watch out the window and see if I can get a picture of the dumpers while they're dumping.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

Can you lock the bin? A length of chain and a padlock with enough keys for those authorized to use it would get them to move on elsewhere...

[Erin]

nope...no lock.

I'm just going to watch and see if I can catch them in the act.

Maybe I can be one of those people who goes outside with a baseball bat to say "Hey! You kid! Get off my lawn!"