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AIBU?

To want to have the 'scrapman' arrested for theft?

30 replies

fanbloodytastic · 10/04/2011 20:35

Apologies my first proper thread is an AIBU but this really got my goat today!

We have a skip parked on our drive as we are doing some fairly big work to the house and it is filled with all sorts.. old beds, carpets, wardrobes, wallpaper, old shed etc etc

A few days ago I noticed a scrapman driving around and went outside to ask him if he wanted anything from the skip... there were a few bits I knew he would take ad it would give me abit more room to chuck stuff in before we had to order another one. He took a load o stuff all was good.

Today I am out in the back garden doing some stuff when I mentioned to OH that I needed to help putting something in the skip and as an after thought said 'Oh I forgot there's no room, Is there?'. He then informed that another (definitely not the one from the other day) scrapman had not long since been through the skip and taken a load of things so there was room. I said that it was lucky and hubby replied 'yeah I went out front about half an hour ago and he was just going through it'.

He hadn't knocked on my door, didn't even acknowledge hubby when he went out or anything. Just pulled up and started stealing bits from my skip. Now I know I'm not wanting it and I would happily have let him have whatever he wanted but I am really annoyed that he didn't ask. The skip is parked ON my drive with the gates closed in front of it, which he had to open and walk about 10' into my garden to get to.

I was going mental and OH says I'm being a bit of a knob about it...which I suspect I probably am but a lack of manners and courtesy really really grates on me! It was my bloody stuff he should have asked first!

AIBU??

OP posts:

Report

dickcheeseandthecrackers · 10/04/2011 20:37

But it's stuff you are throwing out anyway. Why do you care where it goes? I don't understand.

squeakytoy · 10/04/2011 20:39

Well you cant have him arrested, but it is bloody cheeky. It always happens though.

hairylights · 10/04/2011 20:39

Dont sweat the small stuff. The end consequence is you now have more room in your skip. Yabu to be quite so wound up.

Journey · 10/04/2011 20:40

Yes, it would have been nice if he asked (and I think by law he should of) but like dickcheeseandthecrackers said I don't understand why you're making such a fuss about it.

StealthyKissBeartrayal · 10/04/2011 20:41

Would be irritated to have someone come into my garden (through closed gates like that) but I wouldn't be annoyed specifically about people taking stuff out of my skip

OmniaParatus · 10/04/2011 20:42

It is theft unless you have asked the owner of the skip first.

Can't see what you can do though unless you actually catch him going through it! At least there is more room in the skip though, but I know how you feel, I would be uneasy that someone had come into my garden to go through stuff I was throwing out.

ivykaty44 · 10/04/2011 20:43

so it means you have more room to get rid of your own rubbabge and you are complaining as he didn't ask if he coudl do you a favour and take your rubbage to make more room for more.

Your strange

ILikeToMoveItMoveIt · 10/04/2011 20:45

This happens to us a lot.
Once a skip is spotted they are like flies around shit.
We live in rural Suffolk, yet there are people cruising past our house at least twice a week looking for scrap.
Some of them ask, some of them come onto our property and steal. It pisses me right off, especially when I have told them no they can't have anything out of the skip.
Unfortunately once you let them take something they will keep returning and probably won't ask next time. It feels like a real invasion of your privacy, even when it it something you are intending to throw away.

worraliberty · 10/04/2011 20:45

Jeez I was as happy as larry the other weeks when lots of different people came and took stuff out of my skip. I didn't expect them to ask...as long as they kept it tidy and didn't leave stuff on the ground next to it, it was fine.

However, if I had people knocking at my door all day and bloody night to ask...then I would have been annoyed.

princessparty · 10/04/2011 20:46

Butyou didn't see the second scrap man so how do you knowthat it wasn't the same one, or it wasn't the business partner of teh first one.

YouMustBeYolking · 10/04/2011 20:47

He should have asked permission first.

We had a similar thing with our old cooker being taken. As we came into our road it was stood upright on the back of someones pick-up truck. The guys who had removed it tidied up all the other crap in the skip giving us loads of extra room. :)

Bearcat · 10/04/2011 20:48

I think its good.
Recycling.
Maybe the other scrapman told the second scrapman there was stuff to be taken from your skip. If they carry on like this you may save the cost of an extra skip.

Milliways · 10/04/2011 20:48

YANBU to feel annoyed as came through locked gates, but I would get much more annoyed about when "neighbours" just fill your skip up overnight with all their junk and leave you no room to dump your own stuff!

EricNorthmansMistress · 10/04/2011 20:49

YABU
it was rubbish
get over it

emsyj · 10/04/2011 20:59

I would be really angry at someone opening my gates (if I had any!!!) and coming on my property tbh. So YANBU.

Mirage · 10/04/2011 21:08

I had something similar happen,I;d got an old cooker and some copper piping,next to the house,70ft from the road,and in the space of 2.5 hours,someone had nicked the lot.I was very cross,because my dad sells stuff to the scrap man,so it was worth something to us.The police were very interested as there had been a lot of trouble in the area with travelling scrap dealers threatening people to give them stuff.They threatened to burn my friend and her family out of their house and threatened to kill another neighbour,so the police were tracking the varoius scrappies around the county.

However,if you've already given permission,there isn't much you can do.

fanbloodytastic · 10/04/2011 21:30

I'm not strange, unreasonable or overly fussy about who actually takes my rubbish... it's the fact that they didn't show any common courtesy whatsoever in asking. Had the skip have been on the road then fair do's I suppose but it was on my property (by a fair way) behind closed gates. I know it was a different scrappie becuause my OH saw him taking stuff (he also saw the scrappie from the other day). Most people seem to be jumping on the fact that the scrappie is doing me such a great service in taking rubbish...he's only taking the stuff he can sell, which is metal and given that this is stuff from house renovations and not the removal of a rollercoaster or some such metal structure there isn't that much to take anyway. Todays rummage in the skip removed enough rubbish for me to put a bin bag full of garden rubble in... so not a lot of space then.

My kids are running around my house playing so someone walking into my garden to remove items that belong to me freaked me out and made me annoyed at the rudeness.

The title of wanting him arrested was a bit of tongue in cheek really... oops

OP posts:

beesimo · 10/04/2011 21:41

How do you know scrapman no2 wasn't working for scrapman no1 in which permission had been given to remove.

Scrapmen actually provide a valuable service in our area they save us a lot of hassle. They will even take our old chip oil away!

YouaretooniceNOT · 10/04/2011 21:55

It is cheeky i agree. The word has got around or he works for the same company or a subsidary?

pigletmania · 10/04/2011 22:12

Well you did say to him that he could have stuff from your skip and gave him some so mabey he thought that he could do the same again, after all its trash that you dont want.

BluddyMoFo · 10/04/2011 22:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SoftKittyWarmKitty · 10/04/2011 22:16

Did you know that once you put items into a skip they become the property of the skip owner, i.e. the company that the skip belongs to? So anyone taking stuff from the skip isn't stealing from you but from the skip company.

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jade80 · 10/04/2011 22:19

I don't get the problem... you fill skip, skip empties as if by magic. I think I'd rather that than pay for another skip to fill?! Nuts... don't you have anything better to worry about! Why not just put the stuff outide with a sign saying 'free to good home'?

YouaretooniceNOT · 10/04/2011 22:20

SoftKittyWarmKitty But it wasn't the skip owner was it??? was it OP?

and this man opened the gates to her house and entered her property without permission

is there a bell at the gate/intercom system OP?

KingofHighVis · 10/04/2011 22:38

Last time booked a skip it was half full before I'd had chance to put anything in it.

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