My dear wife Karen and I take pride in our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood or Eastwood.
For a dozen years now, we’ve done the most we can to pretty up our little piece of property here on Earth.
Cans on the grass.
And so it irks me when some of my neighbors are not so diligent in their policing of their property.
I don’t expect daily manicuring of the grounds, mind you. No way. People are busy, I know. My lot can get scruffy, sure.
But when people put out their stuff and a big wind comes along and blows it away before the collection crew comes and then they just leave it lie …
A bunch of empty beer cans showed up on the empty lot next to our place. Not our brand. In fact, I saw that they began in a pile perhaps a 12-pack strong out front of the apartment house across the way. But that windy night blew them this way and that, across several lawns. I thought maybe the drinker would take a small stroll and pick them up. One day. Two days. Three.
I took the photo above, picked them up, and tossed them in our blue bin, to be picked up next collection day unless the scavengers take them out first for the nickel deposits.
Do you go chasing your trash if it blows around? Do expect your neighbors to do the same? How many days would you let them sit there before picking them up yourself?
Mark Bialczak 
Yes, yes, yes! If the lid doesn’t fit because you have too much garbage, get another bag or can! That’s my mantra after picking far too many Capri Sun juice pouches, Target receipts and other assorted bits.
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Yes, keep it contained on your patch of pick-up place, I agree, Kay. And if it strays, go get it. Please and thank you.
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That was very irresponsible of them. How annoying.
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I know, Ali. Onward we go, my friend.
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Like you, I would have given it a few days and then picked the cans up myself if they hadn’t already been removed. I wish more people took pride in their home and respected others’ property the way you do, Mark! Hugs for Friday
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Thanks, Christy. People need to display what my father used to drum into my head as “common courtesy.” ❤
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If everyone made an effort to pick up their errant crap in this world, it’d be a much better place to live MBM.
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Literally and figuratively, now that you’ve made me think a bit more about it, MBC. 🙂
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Oh, that is irksome! I found some cigarette butts in our back yard today. I guess the neighbor is flicking them ? So much trash all along the roads when I jog, too. Trash should be picked up immediately.
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Flicking your butts over the property line is rude squared, if that’s the case, Kerbey. I hope it’s (somebody else’s) kids trying to be on the sly instead.
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I’ll blame the wind, too!
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Mark, I just pick up trash and drop it in the nearest bin (Not all the time, but a lot of the time.) ❤
Diana xo
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That’s a great way to go about the daily life, Diana. ❤
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🙂
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yes, i tend to pick up things i find in my yard, as well as pick up my own that may flow into other yards. common good. common courtesy.
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The common good is a great philosophy, Beth. Yay for you!
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It irritates the hell out of me!!
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Yes, people are so rude to let their junk float around like this, Willow.
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I agree!
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I hate other people’s trash blowing into my yard. I pick the trash up and throw it away but damn! It makes me mad.
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Yeah, if only people kept track of their own mess, PJ.
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That’s true! I don’t live very far from an UPS and they have a lot trash that blows my way. Ugh!
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I hate other people’s rubbish. I have cleared it up myself numerous times and written letters to the council and on and on. That was where I used to live. Now I have to pinch myself that I live in a street where there is little rubbish and certainly none of our neighbours deliberately dumps the stuff outside expecting someone else to clean up. I know it’s annoying – it’s thoughtless people that simply don’t care.
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Hooray for your new neighbors’ kindly ways, Rachel. ❤
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Hooray indeed mark – thanks for all your support in getting me here. Still remember your emails telling me that we would move.
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Yes, I am always in your corner from my corner, Rachel. ❤
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thanks mark
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Oh yeah, littering annoys the crap out of me. Kind of depends what it is, if I pick it up or not. Something that might hurt the kids or that they might trip over, for sure. Food I don’t like to touch. Dog poo…well I just wait until it disintegrates.
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There’s annoying and there’s yucko, for sure, Marissa.
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Yep same thing here, cuz. We have a ditch in front of our house (drainage) that runs parallel to the street. You would not believe what we collect from said ditch. People think they can just throw anything out their car window. No respect! …..
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No respect is a pretty appropriate catch-all phrase these days, my cuz Amy Rose. Dagnabbit.
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*sighs* You got it, cuz. 😦
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Hi Mark, how annoying that would be. Luckily, we live inn a cul-de sac that is almost impossible to find. We only have 2 other houses in our cul-de-sac and the neighbors are obsessive-compulsive about their front lawns. The house to the right of us gets toilet-papered on a pretty regular basis. The last time it happened they left entire rolls of toilet paper way up in the trees that have slowly been decomposing and falling in white soggy clumps into the street (and onto my car) when it rains. So that’s a little annoying.
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Hey, SD! My immediate questions: What the heck did those neighbors do to deserve regular visits from the TP brigade? And how long will you put up with TP bombs on your car?
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Hi Mark. They have a teen-aged girl that attends a private school. This seems to be something they do to each other to show their…actually I don’t know why they do it. My car looks like the floor of a public restroom. I don’t know why I am not more annoyed, I figure it will all disintegrate eventually. If we run out of TP at our house, I know where to go to get some – Tee-Hee (or is it Tee-Pee?)
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Don’t let those wet clumps stay on your car finish too long, SD. I’d worry about what they’d do with the lingering moisture. Then again, I can fret about anything and everything. Tee-Pee indeed.
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It’s funny you should write this, because my husband said the exact same thing about the finish just yesterday evening – not the Tee-Pee though. Hee-Hee, I crack myself up!!!!! Guess it is time to go to the carwash.
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We have a dime deposit and it seems to make a difference. Maybe it’s just easier to multiply your number of empties by 10.
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Wow. That adds to the competitiveness for those empties, too, I’d think, Scott.
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The garbage can pickers have been known to have territory wars.
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I hope they don’t get violent, Scott. Oy.
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That’s so frustrating, Mark. We have a corner lot, and there is the occasional drive-by McDonald’s bag. But the neighbors are very considerate. We all pick up the wind-blown stuff. ☺
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I have some neighbors that would and obviously the others. 😦
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If I see my stuff going into others’ yards, yes, I do run to collect. Exception, newspapers in a huge blustery wind, which I let go and then later collected as they pressed themselves to my catty corner neighbor’s fence. I’m no Supergirl 😉 It taught me not to garden in that wind, no matter how good it feels, lol!
We get the odd litter here and there, I assume from wind. Now and again I see things I know are Moo’s. Now THAT will make a person nuts. Here’s this kid, who always picks up litter in public, leaving wrappers in her own yard! Gah!
Right now my yard is littered with fallen branches.
It’s good to take pride in one’s home 🙂
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Sometimes I see people who don’t live here emptying car crap out in the street, Joey. Fast food wrappers, cigarette butts, empty cups, right out on the street, and they zoom off. I run out and scoop it into a bag as fast as I can so it doesn’t spread, muttering away. When it’s neighbors’ crap from the curb, though, I expect some courtesy. You would make a good neighbor, no Supergirl timing needed. 😮
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Oh that’s awful.
We live on a quiet dead end, so traffic is low here. We always know who doesn’t belong, and we’re a vocal group.
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We have several very small apartment houses scattered between one-family houses across the street, and that’s where the unknown visitors go. Argh.
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Argh indeed.
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