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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not stop people raiding our skip?

55 replies

pepperyrocket · 03/04/2012 17:08

We're having work done in our house at the moment so there's a skip outside with our old bathroom, rafters, bricks etc in.

Today a truck drove up and two men started loading the old bathroom stuff into it. They'd driven off before I could decide whether to run out and stop them.

It is stealing (and trespassing...) but surely it's just going to waste anyway?

Should I have gone out all guns blazing??

OP posts:

faintpinkline · 03/04/2012 18:17

let them raid it and if you have nothing else you need to put in yourself knock on your neighbour's door and ask they've got anything they need to get rid of. We did this and they were really pleased we did

suburbophobe · 03/04/2012 20:11

Recycling is great! Even out of a skip.

I am always happy to be able to pass something on.

If it's in a skip, it means it's being chucked out, anyone is welcome to it as far as I'm concerned.

missorinoco · 03/04/2012 20:19

What's the consensus on people putting things in then?

My previous neighbours used to do this, and cheerily tell us afterwards, once saying they checked with the builder there was enoguh space for it to go in first. Quite hard to object after the event, but it does make me irritated.

McHappyPants2012 · 03/04/2012 20:32

Miss skips are expensive to hire, normally people hire one when they need to get rid of alot of stuff. People putting things in them may mean they have not got the space for there rubbish

Dustinthewind · 03/04/2012 20:35

It's when I realised what a very economically deprived area I'd moved to, hired a skip, filled it with 1970s rubbish from the house, bits of a bar, fake panelling, manky carpet.
People helped themselves, the skip was half full when it was collected.

VivaLeBeaver · 03/04/2012 20:37

I remember when I was very young and drunk coming home after clubbing to find a skip in my street. I was so happy and ran into the kitchen and pulled the manly carpet up and stuck it in the skip at 3am.

I do feel guilty now.

RuleBritannia · 03/04/2012 20:38

We had some gardening done, including removal of a paving stone path. the landscapers broke it up and put it into a skip. We had a super idea and went out at night to retrieve some to make crazy paving in a different part of the garden (where they were ot working). We felt guilty going out at night to our own skip!

RuleBritannia · 03/04/2012 20:38

*not working

brighthair · 03/04/2012 20:47

I leave them to it. Wanted to get rid of old sofa so left it outside with free to good home sign. Nobody took it
Removed sign, next morning, sofa gone

omgomgomg · 03/04/2012 20:56

Just be grateful that they are recycling stuff that may otherwise have ended up in landfill.

When we were skip virgins our builders advised us not to hire it too far in advance of the major ripping out phase of the building works which we had planned to do ourselves to save money at the start of the rennovation work as otherwise "the bastards'll fill the bugger up quicker than you can blink".

No definition of who "the bastards" were but we did find out that "the bastards" are highly secretive nocturnal creatures.

RachelHRD · 03/04/2012 21:26

We had a skip outside our old house for a few weeks and the contents always reduced on bin days. I came out one day just as a group of binmen were rifling through it and dealt them a cheery 'Morning!! Help yourselves - just don't put anything in it!'. They all looked a bit sheepish!

Skips are expensive so if someone is happy to take stuff free it's saving you money. It is polite to ask first though!

plutocrap · 03/04/2012 22:00

Why should it be illegal to take things out of a skip?

AmberLeaf · 03/04/2012 22:12

at VivaLeBeavers manly carpet!

VivaLeBeaver · 03/04/2012 22:50

Dam iPad not knowing manky is a proper word.

Seabright · 03/04/2012 22:56

I love a bit of skip diving! I do ask first (but if no-one was at home, I might help myself!)

Recently I got an old & beautiful wooden chest of drawers, a toy pram, some unused crafty bits and a big bundle of glassy mags!

Apparently Paul McCartney is a fan of skip diving!

mummakaz · 03/04/2012 22:58

I agree it would have been polite if they had asked for the stuff first. I personally wouldn't have a problem with people nicking the stuff out of the skip as long as they didn't put rubbish in it

I left a 3 and 2 piece leather sofa out in my garden with 'free to collector' sign on it. It was gone by the next morning

Eggrules · 03/04/2012 23:02

"They have done you a favour as now you have more room in your skip for other rubbish but it would have been good manners to ask first." Right first time imo.

People SHOULD ask before putting shoite in.

HalfPastWine · 04/04/2012 00:54

at Stranded I was and went back in the dead of night with my hood up and took it anyway.

Birnamwood · 04/04/2012 08:08

When we had our bathrooms taken out, two women knocked on the door and gestured to the skip, we just sort of nodded in a 'knock yourself out' kind of way and they stripped the lot of any metal. They used to come back every day to check there wasn't anymore and I left them a cake as a thank you for recycling all the old metal/copper :)

We have a rag and bone man come round weekly too, I couldn't sell my old gas cooker or donate it to charity so I left it on the front instead of in the skip and poof, it was gone. I'd like to wish him luck in cleaning the fecker :)

extremepie · 04/04/2012 11:17

We had this the other day, we got a mini skip thing to get rid of some garden rubbish and 2 old (broken) pushchairs.

Noticed yesterday that 1 of the pushchairs is missing!

Not that I mind, like you said it's helpful as now we have more room for our stuff, although I pity the person who took it - in addition to being broken, it has been our dog's peeing post for the last few weeks!

SomethingSuitablyWitty · 04/04/2012 11:26

Where I live (not in UK) you are able to have 3m2 of skip-type rubbish picked up twice a year by the Council for free. You have to call and arrange it and it's a bit of a faff. You put out the stuff the night before and they come for it next day. Anyhoo, I've now done it 3 times and twice, I've had to call first thing in the morning to cancel because everything was gone, magically, under cover of darkness.

wimblehorse · 04/04/2012 11:32

YADNBU.

One of the many reasons I no longer see one woman I met at a baby group is due to her comments on facebook about being so cross about people "stealing from her skip" when she was renovating her house.
Why wouldn't you want someone to get some use out of something you no longer have any use for?

jubilee10 · 04/04/2012 11:42

People wouldn't generally help themselves where we live so we have to take our rubbish and leave it outside my dsd's house. Goes like magic!

Lueji · 04/04/2012 11:47

Not sure if anyone has mentioned, but if you leave metal stuff outside (and it's not stolen during the night), you could sell it to those people.

We have always been happy to let people take whatever they wanted if it was outside to be thrown away.
It saved us the bother.

They usually only want metal, though.

Lueji · 04/04/2012 11:51

What you should be concerned, is about people putting things IN the skip, because that will cost you.

Which reminds me of that episode of One Foot in the Grave, where a Citroen 2CV appeared in Victor Meldrew's skip.

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