To ask this woman to stop?!

I have a sneaky suspicion op isn’t as annoyingly polite’ as she thinks she is.

lolll

My record was a while ago
Left an old battered plastic box out the front full of various books .
Advertised it was out there to local groups and Next Door
Forgot a few books , it was less than 5 minutes after I had put it all out, went to add the books and the whole lot were gone. Broke plastic box too.

I think it depends on where in Bristol you live. My relative lives in Bishopston, just behind the Gloucester Road, and leaving stuff on walls to be taken is very much a thing. In that area incomes are almost polarised, and someone's rubbish is quite often someone else's treasure.

Recycling, however you do it, makes sense - and how you do it very much depends on where you live and whether you have transport. Because of its location, few people walk past my house so I use Freecycle, If there are no takers I take stuff to the tip.

I hate these threads....

OP: how do I stop this?

PP: put a sign on it.

OP: why should I have to?

🙄

Some people on this thread really need to unclench.

Anything metal goes in my front garden and the "tat man" lol (which he will be known as from now on) drives past every few days to see what people have left out and just loads it on to his van, looks like this is normal in some areas but not in others. Imagine someone knocking on your front door to tell you that you have left something outside lol oh that's where I left the metal frame to an old futon lol been looking for that everywhere thanks. 🤨 posters suggesting you pay properly to dispose of your washing machine and stuff like that, why lol someone will come and take it for free and yeah maybe some people do have time to piss about taking pots and pans to the charity shop but I don't so I would leave them out and they would also be taken. Makes me laugh on here sometimes how OTT some people get

You can do 3 things to stop this

1. Put a sign on it - "free to take" or "broken"
2. Tell her next time she does it to stop ringing on your door
3. Stop putting broken or unwanted things at the bottom of your driveway and take them to the tip yourself

But you seem to want to do
4) Don't change your behaviour and continue complaining about hers

But it’s the exact opposite, how can you not understand this?

They take the metal or parts they can sell and flytip the rest where they won’t get caught or charged. It goes to landfill and someone else has to take it to the tip or it hurts animals etc.

A totally normal thing in SE London

I walk past a proper stall of second hand books every day.

Today I walked past an age 7-8 denim jacket with tiny roses on, neatly folded on the wall - that will be gone today

None of it is shit, none of it clogs up anything - if not gone the householder puts it in the bin

But that’s my point. OP can clearly defend herself so I would have thought saying please don’t ring my bell again would be fairly straightforward. Sorted.

It’s usual here too. Most days things are taken. It’s not strange at all.

As other PPs have said, it’s her passive aggressive way of telling you she thinks it looks messy. Would hate to have a builders skip in your road as she’d probably not be happy with that either.

However, it is your property and she is trespassing: under the law you only have licence to enter someone’s home to ring the doorbell, make deliveries etc, in response to an invitation (ordering items is considered to give an implied invitation other wise they can’t be delivered, hence royal mail can walk to your door, and utilities/meter readers can too). Next time she does it, state that you consider her to be trespassing and are giving her notice that she does not have permission to enter your driveway.

Items on your property are yours so she should not touch them - technically, though, by going onto your drive to remove them the scrap men are actually stealing/trespassing too as they are not considered abandoned until you put them on the roadside (like refuse bins). This is why, as other’s have said, you should really have a sign up to state they are free as this gives permission to enter your land and to take the items.

And nobody puts signs up here either.

Exactly. The people who think someone is using their time and effort on collecting things to then dump elsewhere must be a couple of pans short of a box of tat!

I agree with this. The problem is that some of these scrap dealers may be legitimate and will dismantle/dispose of your rubbish responsibly, but many don't. We had a working hoover stolen from our front garden/driveway by a scrap gang. It was not visible from the road and I actually came outside to see them loading it into the back of a van before they drove off at speed. When we reported this to the police they said that theft by so called scrap dealers is a big issue, and many of these people pretty much treat anything not nailed down as fair game to take. The police's view was that by leaving stuff out to be taken, people are encouraging this - it gives so called scrap men a legitimate excuse to drive around neighbourhoods looking out for what to take, whether left out intentionally or not.
People need to take responsibility for disposing of their own rubbish - if you don't know where it ends up don't leave it out. Arrange to have it disposed of properly or take to your local council recycling centre. (and yes it does look awful in my view,)

It’s all taken by locals. We don’t have “tat men” here and it’s usual to tag the local scrappie if anything metal is available. Never any fly tipping either.

I’ve just put out several pounds of surplus gooseberries as we have a massive crop in the garden this year. There will be apples and plums later in the year I expect too.

She sounds a bit eccentric to put it mildly. If you see her just don't answer the door?

It looks really unsightly. Shes probably clumsily getting you to tidy up your shit which makes the street look like a dump

Whether she thinks it looks like a dump or not, surely she must have caught on by now that nothing changes when she “points out” that the OP has left something at the bottom of the driveway. Her method isn’t clumsy; it’s a complete failure and a waste of time.

They say the definition of madness is repeating the same action again and again and expecting different results. That seems pretty accurate here, as this woman is frankly deranged.

I don't have a drive and have only once chased a scrap man down the road to collect and old washing machine 😁 but anything else broken or unusable I would take to the tip as they have special bins for those things. If it's usable toys/games etc maybe put a sign up to say free to take but only leave them out for a day or so.

We live rurally and are forever getting fly tipped junk from these tat men who are unlicensed, strip what they want and dump the rest over hedges, in farmers fields and lay-bys. It is really annoying. not all tat men do this, but enough do for it to be a problem.

I do! If I leave something out it’s rarely there a few hours later, especially metal. We still get the ‘Any old iron’ man singing out at least once a month during in the summer.

We also leave items for the scrap man, but we do make up a sign that says SCRAP. Always gone by the end of the day.

Might that work for you OP?

Also, last week our next door neighbour left out a lovely dining table on the edge of their property, with a Free - please help yourself, sign. It went the next day.

We are not in the poshest part of town, but (according to local estate agents), its a desirable residential road. So maybe we are all guilty of lowering the tone? Who cares. All our neighbours have done this at some stage over the years.

As long as not on the public pathway, I cant see the harm. It cant be fly tipping as nothing's being dumped illegally.

Plus better it gets taken away for scarp/reuse than going to the dump.

Oh god, replies like this make me cringe. Do you honestly think OP is putting out washing machines every few weeks/months? Really? Or do you think it's more likely that it's smaller items that she puts out more frequently? I'm sure OP knows where and what to donate to charity shops if she so wishes.

But do you keep obliquely saying “There’s some old pans in your driveway” in the hope they’ll get the hint you don’t like it?

Next time she does it, tell her “Please don’t touch my things” If she then says it was on your drive, just agree and say, “Yes, it was on my drive. Why are coming onto my property and picking up my things?”

You say she might live nearby but doesn’t do it when others leave stuff out. Perhaps she lives closer than you think so isn’t so bothered about stuff not near her house. As long as your stuff isn’t there more than a day or two, I don’t see the problem. Our local council collects large household stuff and we’re told to put it outside on our drive 24hrs before the collection day.