AIBU to ask WTAF is wrong with people???

[LonginesPrime]

I'm in the process of redecorating one of the kids' bedrooms. The council are coming to collect some of the bulky items we're getting rid of, including small sofa bed, some ikea shelf units and some wood from dismantled cabin beds. I put it outside in my front garden this morning ready for collection as it was a two person job and that was when I had someone to help. We live in a standard Victorian terrace with just a small square of concrete for the garden at the front, separated from the pavement by a waist-height wall and a metal gate.

When I came home this afternoon, I saw that two of the shelf units had been taken (and the sofa bed placed on the floor, where previously it had been sitting on the units).

This is fine and, although I thought it a little cheeky that someone would come into my garden to take things (i.e. they weren't left on the pavement), I expect this in London and appreciate that someone might want some battered old bookcases. I even thought to myself 'well, at least they put the sofa bed back how considerate'.

However, I just went out to put out the rubbish and noticed that one of the black bags that I'd put in the plastic bin was now in front of the bin and had been opened. I then realised that a child's plastic bow (the shooting kind) which was in one of the bags had been left on the windowsill next to the bins and there was a matted-haired My Little Pony on the ground.

I opened the other bins and saw that someone had ripped open each of the bags and had left the contents spilling everywhere. The council won't take them like that so I'm the one who gets screwed if I just leave them. So I've had to tip the bins up to get everything out of them and into new bin bags in the dark, tipping a load of old rainwater/rancid bin juice over my path and my bare feet in the process.

I get that someone obviously realised I was having a clearout and they've clearly taken bits and pieces, and I get that there's a lot of poverty and that one man's trash is another man's treasure, but AIBU to think that you don't go into someone's front garden, open their bins and rip up the bags inside them?

I'm off to have a hot bath and to ponder what's becoming of the world...

I thought this thread was going to be a TAAT.

I hate Freecycle/Amazon MP/Gumtree. My recent experience of trying to give stuff away for free on these sites was horrendous and exposed me to a bunch of time wasters and cheeky fuckers.

I wouldn't be too impressed at people coming into my garden (just as well you don't have a rottie) to rake through my bins but they may be desperate.

yoda they are nice.
They are also a hazard on narrow pavements and this is East London not Southwold.
Why do people move into an area because its gritty and urban and then insist on trying to mould it into where they really want to live but can't afford?

My DC's school is down a narrow street. It has been there for a hundred years. A hundred years of hundreds of young children walking down those pavements.
Only now every other tree has a mini garden round it and the 'owners' become full of rage if some poor kid treads on a flower.

It drives me mad

I just don't get humans sometimes. We have a lovely park near us. But it's routinely covered in litter, including broken bottles and bits of glass. What is wrong with people that they can't put stuff in a bin or, failing that, take it home with them? Why would you leave bits of glass lying around that a dog or small child could hurt themselves on? How do people simultaneously end up so lazy, entitled and inconsiderate?

MrsDV

Surely some mistake? Southwold is East London

hackmum

Fuckers, that's who

food should be in the food bin
Not everywhere has food bins.
We have a black bin for general waste, brown bin for garden waste and veg peelings, blue bin for clean recycling - not glass. I couldn't get a family member to understand that yes she could put glass in her recycling at home but not here.

Southwold is probably the only place more expensive than East London

Seriously, I am a nice person and I like plants and recycling etc.
But watching some poor bugger in a power chair have to drive into the road to avoid all the virtue signalling tweeness sends me into a rage

Although....I picked up two sun loungers and a lloyd loom basket the other day

I agree with the op. If your going to rummage through someone's bins then at least have the decency to leave it as you found it.
I put an old washing machine in my back garden at the edge of my house. I have a long front path and a gate leading to the road.
I was thinking how to get it all the way to the front to leave it on the roadside when one day it was gone!
Someone had walked down my path, opened the gate at the side of my house and gone into my back garden to take it.

The council charge to collect large items here.

I know you are. And I hear you. I struggle with some of the twee that's emerging right now in my neck of the woods

Oh and I've had 2 flower tubs stolen!
My garden has hedges and cences and is big.
Can't believe some cheeky fecker had the nerve to open the gate and walk all the way down the path to steal them. My house is double fronted too with big windows so they were prepared to do it I need full view of my front rooms.

Round here, London as well, things are taken from the pavement.

I would consider taking things from the front garden as theft.

I hate Freecycle/Amazon MP/Gumtree. My recent experience of trying to give stuff away for free on these sites was horrendous and exposed me to a bunch of time wasters and cheeky fuckers

This exactly. I tried to give away a sofa in good condition, only 6 years old so modern in style. I waited in 3 seperate mornings for people to collect. I put it on eBay for £1 in the end. At least then they have an obligation to collect (which the buyer did)

I've given away a load of stuff - bedding sets, towel bales, pushchairs through our Facebook selling site. I've been told things are the wrong colour (re grey pushchair "hoping 4 something more girlie hun" from someone in 'desperate need') and asked to deliver things several miles across town in a very specific time slot.

Charity shops are a great option if you have transport to get there and are available to drop the stuff off 9-5 Mon-Sat which some people aren't.

Sometimes things (like scribbled on MLP and unuseable bow-and-arrows with no arrows ) just need to be binned.

PolarBear

Lots of charities collect furniture, British Heart Foundation.

Also Councils sometimes have links with charities to collect furniture in good nick. In our case it;s the Quakers

As I said my local food bank took my sofa after all the people like British Heart foundation turned their noses up at it.

That's great for your area Yoda, I didn't have any joy though. No BHF nearby and I'd have had to pay the council £35 to collect it and leave it kerbside from 6am in February. EBay saved the day though so doesn't matter.

Lots of charities collect furniture, British Heart Foundation.

But there are certain things BFH won't take, at least in my area.

Ie, cookers, ceiling lights, anything wall mounted, pots/pans.

Hence Freecycle, Gumtree et al.

They wouldn't take my granny's 1 year old lovely sofa when she died as she'd cut off the fire label for some inexplicable reason.

I live in a London Borough and bought my own wheelie. Everything has to be bagged. Often people chuck their costa cups and maccie d wrapper in before I can wheel it back in as bin men leave lud flapping open. Other boroughs provide a multitude of wheelies

They wouldn't take my granny's 1 year old lovely sofa when she died as she'd cut off the fire label for some inexplicable reason.

I had the same issue.

And the matching leather sofa which did have. FR label, they wouldn't take because it had a few marks on it (it was 10 years old).

Nothing that wouldn't come off with a leather wipe, mind.

They said they could only take sofas in "pristine" condition.

Other than that, they were very good. And did at least turn up when they said they would and didn't ask "so what else have you got for me?", which is more than can be said for the Gumtree/Freecycle/FB MPers!

Ah yes, I see

You sound like you are new to London. I would put stuff out and call the council after 24 hours as by then things are usually recycled to whoever is in need of them and it would save me a council collection fee.

What happens if someone leaves their bicycle in their front garden, do people just assume they can take it? What if someone has a brand new big kitchen appliance put there while they get the old one out, or is moving furniture around and temp puts it in the garden to have enough room to move things? Just going in someones garden and taking stuff sounds wrong.

If I want someone to take it I would put it on the pavement but like I said my washer was taken from the garden

That's really violating and disrespectful, not to mention illegal.