We thought we had neighborhood hostility covered over here at Baristanet, but then we went over to the Montclair Watercooler and discovered that we'd only scratched the surface.
Seems there's a major suburban etiquette question going: is it ok to throw your trash into a neighbor's can? No way, says this poster.
Last Thursday - trash pick up day for us - I was driving out of my driveway, toward my receptacles on Grove St., near a DeCamp bus stop. At that moment, a woman, waiting for the bus, was casually depositing her banana peel in my emptied trash can, which was on its side. I pulled up to return my trash cans to their regular spots next to my house, and she just looked at me. Please don't use my receptacles, just because they're close to the bus stop! It isn't nice. I wouldn't like the extra fruit flies your UN-bagged banana peel would add to my garbage -- plus - I don't put raw fruit and vegetable scraps into the garbage. I compost them. I took your banana peel to my composter on the other side of the yard.
This person had it even worse. She lives near a baseball field and people throw pizza boxes and other trash right onto her day lilies.
Although is not exactly considerate to throw items (especially recyclables!) in homeowners' empty trash bins, it is much better than tossing it into someone's mulch.
Worse yet, this story from Ken Kurson, now a resident of Cedar Grove.
This is the subject of a subplot on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm ("Chet's Shirt") in which Larry puts his garbarge in his neighbor's can and the neighbor goes mental. When I lived on Watchung, we got tons of garbage in our cans. I didn't mind, even misfiled garbage, because it was so preferable to the primary method of disposal, which was to throw stuff in my hedge. Usually in the hardest to reach, thorniest patch. We literally removed our hedges because of this.
Wanna talk trash about your neighbors? Come on. We know all the good dirt hasn't been spilled yet.
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Comments (18)
i agree with the peeved. i've had people toss their garbage into my cans, and yeah. it's always the same story: a broken bag of cat litter. some half full beer cans. a half a sandwich.
it's no mystery that no one wants extra wildlife, maggots and clammy beer smells in one's garbage cans. i try to keep mine clean, and yes i'm unapologetically neurotic about it.
once my neighbor asked politley if she could put her NEATLY BAGGED garbage in my cans because the snow was so high on her side of the street there was no place for her cans, and that was fine because she was 'neighborly' and clean about it.
Oh, how I miss curb service...
:)
yes-that was thoughtless-but better then dumping it on your lawn, side walk, proprty-, etc.-
my peeve
-when the refuse management team (aka garbage collector) empties 3 of your cans into the truck
( usually but not specifically- after a long hot weekend complete with chicken carcus)
as well as,
a couple of other neighbor's-which i refer to as "The Simutainious Pick up"
(guess they really want to get of the heat, rain, cold)
upon the drive away- refuse ( mine, the neighbor's and whoevers that is dripping out of the truck) is left lying in the street in front of my home --
-then you have to pick it up again and place it back into your own just emptied recepticle-----
then, of course, there is also the "3/4 Pick Up" whereupon your garbage can is for some reason not emptied completely.
scared to complain for fear of stinky retribution.
I live on the GR ridge and H.S. kids are always tossing plastic bags of beer cans & bottles over the wall instead of recycling it at their own homes and getting caught red handed.
Living in the east village before it became "The East Village," I remember hearing the cries of "Air Mail!" and then seeing the bags drop past my window into the alley below.
More recently, I had a neighbor who would wander out on pickup day and place his bag of trash in one of the already emptied cans. Being the good neighbor I am, I realized he didn't want to do that, so I returned it to him. Via Air Mail. Solved the problem.
On my street the trash gets picked up on one side of the street and sometimes it's hours before they come back to do the other side. If I happen to have a small bag of trash from breakfast, I have at times walked across the street to place this bag in my neighbor's can. I place the cover back on the can. The trash is in a bag, not causing any damage and to be picked up within a few hours. Is this wrong?
"I live on the GR ridge and H.S. kids are always tossing plastic bags of beer cans & bottles over the wall instead of recycling it at their own homes and getting caught red handed."
I hear ya, PAZ. A couple of times a year, my running club organizes a trail clean-up for the trail that runs from Verona HS through Cedar Grove. I would have to say that about 95% of the empty beer bottles and cans are found littering trail at the high school site.
It's bad enough that these underage kids are drinking but they're litterers, too. No one seems to give a rat's ass because we run into the same problem year after year.
Okay, slightly off topic, but...
what the hell is up with the recycling in Montclair? They seem to decide completely at random what they will or will not pick up--and it varies from week to week.
This morning, my husband placed a nice, clean rubbermaid can with neatly stacked magazines to be recycled... no go. They didn't pick it up. Other times they have.
In the months before we were married (last year), we got a lot of gifts via UPS, fed ex, etc. We would break down the boxes and neatly stack them on the curb for recycling... once again, we would come home to find them billowing about the neighborhood.
Rather than being bad neighbors, we ended having to make weekly runs to the neighborhood dumpsters to drop them off.
I just don't understand how they make a determination as to what they will or will not pick up. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it.
Can anyone explain this to me?
Only #1 and #2 plastics are now being picked up. Look on the bottom of the container before you put it outside. This was announced in the Montclair Times, on the Watercooler, etc.
I believe what they accept depends on what vendor they work with. Most places across the country don't accept #1 and #2, but for awhile our vendor did.
There does seem to be a certain mystique as to what the town collectors will take. Though I'm sure it's my fault for not consulting the Official Rule Book on Garbage Collection in Montclair, or ORBGC, also affectionately known by as the "Orb-Gack!". I always a copy open on my kitchen table.
Boy do I agree with cstarling's post.
In GR, you can elect to have the "sanitation engineers" pick up the trash in your back or side yards.
For those of us who don't want to haul the bins out front, this is kinda nice.
But sometimes they leave a stinky trail.
Much of this would be solved if there were more (many more) public recepticals well placed around town.
When I walk my dog there are none so I carry my poop with me until I get home, but there are plenty of people who don't. All in all, I would rather have someone put garbage in my receptical than throw it on the ground.
What a bunch of whiners. The person is throwing a banana peel in the garbage rather than throwing it on your lawn or your bushes. Man, life is good in Montclair if this is what you are complaining about...
You are absolutely correct, ug. Life indeed is good. It's extraordinary, when you think about it for half a second, that somebody is actually complaining that someone else threw trash in a garbage can. It would take some considerable effort to imagine anything more petty.
Though, I would gander you wouldn't want me to dump my daughter's dirty diaper in your freshly emptied trash can any more than I like it when someone tosses their dog's poop into ours! Take it with you, will ya'?
daniella,
I think some of the rules have changed, but here is a good explanation of the current regime
Thanks, eleVate.
regarding hit-or-miss recycling pick up, I too have had this problem. I follow the rules, and when it is not picked up, I call the town the next day and they pick it up. It's too bad we have to make the call, but they have been responsive.