To want to move house because the streets are so full of rubbish

[sooperdooper]

I quite like the area where we live in general, it's fairly quiet, good transport links, few shops walkable distance, it's not posh but it's nice enough - but I'm beginning to hate it simply for the amount of litter and crap all over the streets, it's horrid!

Along the road I walk to get the bus every day there's just tonnes of litter, people just clearly don't care at all and it's just disgusting :(

I feel like a right old busybody but I've started reporting it to the council it's really making me want to move to a different/nicer/cleaner area - is it just me??

It's not just you. I can say quite confidently that it doesn't matter how 'posh' an area is, this can happen anywhere. I live in a very affluent part of town (though affluent I am not) and our streets are truly disgusting some weeks.

We have alternate fortnightly bin collections and come recycling collection day, my garden is strewn with other people's crap and rubbish they've let fly out of their bin and not bothered to pick up. Newspapers, drinks cans, cigarette packets you name it, all over the place.

I'm not even going to go into the dog shit problem. I live five minutes away from a primary school and small children have to tiptoe around piles of fresh turd every morning on the way to school. Nasty.

I've complained! And feel no shame admitting it! And I'll keep complaining until we get those embarrassing 'polite notices' through the door, shaming people into picking up their own waste!

Litter is one of my bug-bears too. So unnecessary and so unpleasant.

However, rather than thinking "they" should do something about it, how about you (we) do something?

I go to a conservation group once a week and one of the men always turns up with a sackful of rubbish he's collected on his walk there. Someone else I know takes an extendable grabber thing and a plastic sack with her on her dog walks. My neighbour clears litter from outside all our houses everyday (it's bad, we live opposite a school and bless him, he says he's glad of something to do ) Makes a massive difference if just one person does a small stretch everyday, or even weekly.

Our local council recently employed a private company to catch and fine litterbugs. There was outrage and it didn't last long. Personally I thought it was a great idea.

Reporting is good idea.

All council services are now pretty much rationed. Litter enforcement tends to get focused on grot spots, which are identified in a number of ways including volume of complaints.

Our local council recently employed a private company to catch and fine litterbugs. There was outrage and it didn't last long. Personally I thought it was a great idea.

Really? Wouldn't someone be embarrassed to express outrage over something so sensible?

I hate this. It is a sad day when the local councils have to use taxpayers' money to clean up after people who can't be bothered to find a bin. It's kind of the death knell of a

Posted too soon.

It's the death knell of a neighborhood.

I feel your pain. I live in a city where it seems the wind is always blowing. Every morning I'm picking takeaway cartons, drink tins, crisp packets etc from outside the front door - some days I feel like Victor bloody Meldrew! And the dog shit! I'm a dog owner and always always pick up my dog's shit but so many people just couldn't care less. This morning my little dog rolled in shit inadvertently after chasing her ball. Bloody covered in it. There are shit bins everywhere but it's still too difficult. I have complained but never had an answer.

You'd think wouldn't you Goodbye, but no, it was stealth taxation and a bunch of jobsworths being over zealous...apparently. Lots of sad face photos in the local paper of people who couldn't afford the "unreasonable" fines.

That's absolutely shocking. I might email my MP now demanding that he do the same for my street. Of course, he probably won't listen.

The area I lived when I was a student was like this if not worse - litter, in various stages of mouldiness, decay, and rat-nibbled - all over the place. Disgusting, unsanitary and depressing. It was worse on bin days - as there were no wheely bins so you just put your bin bags on the pavement the night before, they'd get nibbled by vermin overnight and the rubbish pulled all over the street, then the bin men would come and just pick up the bag, usually scattering more rubbish out en route to the bin lorry. It was not seen as their job to clean up the strewn litter, just the bags. The cumulative effect was absolutely foul.

I live on a quiet rural lane nowadays and am still disgusted at how people just chuck fag packets, crisp packets, drink cans etc into the hedges. I go along with a carrier bag every now and again to clean up after them.

YANBU, you'd be happier if you lived somewhere clean.

I live in a middling sort of area and there are quite a few OAPs. Some of them bought litter pickers and go around picking stuff up. The culprits are teenagers drinking in the streets, discarding beer bottles etc, recycling crews who drop half the recycling all over the place and a small minority of people who just don't give a shit about dropping litter and don't pick up dog poo.

I once saw a woman in a McD car park and she had eaten her lunch in her car and instead of getting out and walking 10 feet to the bin, she threw the whole lot out of her window and drove off. I couldn't believe it - she herself and also her car looked clean and smart!

It's awful where we live as well. Even in the woods! I'll be wandering around the woods above the reservoir with our dog and will come across heaps of empty cider cans, crisp packets, carrier bags etc. It's really horrible.

Its not just our streets, was driving down an A road and the tipper lorry in front had the back cover hanging off and all kinds of crud and rubbish was blowing over the road and the verge etc. it was dangerous. This litter will end up on the fields and makes the side of the roads look awful too.
I aways take my rubbish home or find a bin. Its not hard!

People who litter in our green spaces - are they worse than the people who litter on the city streets? I think so. They're small-time eco-terrorists in my view.

if i got a grabber and a black bag, and left the full black bag near a street bin would it be cleared away do you think?

Litter and dogshit round here.

Our road is fine, but the route I walk to work - if it wasn't so disgusting I'd post pics of the pavement. It would be impossible with a buggy, that is no exaggeration. Shit everywhere.

There is one corner where someone obviously gets here big dog to shit because no sooner has the rain washed one massive pile away, there is another pile.

Goodbye, if you have a local paper run by Johnson Press, you can guarantee daily sad face photos of people outraged at being fined for dropping a fag end 'by accident'.

Jeez. Why such tolerance for litter-bugs? Councils are not known for their kindness towards parking "mistakes".

If you can afford to smoke, you can afford to pay a fine for scattering your butts. If you can afford to own a dog, you can afford to pay a fine for not pickup up it's poo.

Off to google the sad face.

Filo - it would vary by council but probably no it wouldn't get picked up. You'd need to do it in carrier bags so that the carrier bags fitted into the bin.

Makes me mad as hell. I have zero tolerance for litter bugs including those dropping fag ends that my curious 2 year old wants to pick up.

I once saw a couple of teens with youngesters with them leave a heap of cans, crisp packets etc on a divine summers day by the river when I was out with DH and DS1. I went after them and said loudly "I think you forgot something?" They shot me fucking daggers but put all their crap in the nearby bin.

This reminds me of an occasion when I was out with my boss and a man in front of us dropped a train ticket. My boss, thinking the ticket would be lost, ran after the man to hand it back, only to be told "oh it's Ok it's rubbish." No embarrassment at all about dropping it, as if it belonged on the floor once finished with.

Another time, when DS1 was small we saw a school friend of his coming out of Greggs with a sausage roll . Child dropped the bag on the ground. DS1 pounced on it and handed it to the mother (because mothers look after the rubbish!) who promptly dropped it back on the ground.

It's just so inherently wrong to drop litter in my world, but there seem to be an awful lot of people who didn't get that bit of upbringing. It's not even people who know but are too lazy IYSWIM, lots of people just don't seem to realise they shouldn't be dropping litter.

I hate litter too. I remember going for a walk on a deserted beach on a lovely summer day, and came across a group of young people with a disposable barbecue. Fair enough; that's fun. But when I walked back again they'd gone, and left the smouldering barbecue and other rubbish on the beach. The fact that they had non-local (and rather posh) accents didn't help my rage.