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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Well, am I?! HONEY, WHO SHRUNK THE WHEELIE BIN?! I'm overheating and the f*****s have stolen my wheelie bin!!!

215 replies

PimpMyWheelieBin · 04/07/2018 20:22

NC.

Got home today to find my large wheelie bin has shrunk!!! In its place is a miniature version!!! Toy Town!!! No warning, no contact from the local council, nothing. I am not pleased.

Now locally, with DCs using nappies, or if you have a large family, then you are entitled to the large bin. We qualify on the nappy front.

A few months ago, the local council sent out forms to everyone to check current status. I diligently filled in the form and sent it back. The waste management team came round and exchanged a few neighbours' (now only with older DCs) large wheelie bins for the small ones, but as expected they left our large one. All seemed well.

Until today, when a swap of ours was done out of the blue.

We are not huge consumers, and all our garden waste and recycling goes into the separate bins without fail. With a family, and pets, and DCs using nappies, the large wheelie bin is full for the fortnightly collections. We live rurally, there is no nearby household waste site, and of course we'd never, ever flytip. With the best will in the world, we couldn't manage with a smaller bin. If we could, we would.

The best, or worst, part of this scenario - and the bit that has me flapping around doing forehead-slapping impressions of a sweaty Victor Meldrew in a flowery dress and wedge-heeled sandals - follows:

Our old large wheelie bin was nearly half full, mainly of bagged nappies. These nappies have been taken out and transferred over to the new miniature wheelie bin, leaving it pretty full already. The next collection is over a week away.

What sort of useless article does that?! Comes to do a bin swap, sees the old one is half full of nappies, and carries on anyway?! Did this fooly mcfoolface not stop to think for one minute, 'oh, this must be a mistake, these people have the nappy entitlement to a large bin, I'd better leave it and go back to base, or ring, and check. But no. Instead he, (for it must be a he), took the time and trouble to decant all the nappies over to the new miniature bin. He didn't even knock on our door to check, (because someone was working at home all day).

I am not one of those 'I pay my council tax!' kind of people, and I usually really really appreciate the jobs people do for us, that keep our communities and lives ticking over. But this lack of any contact from the local council, and the lack of initiative from the person who did the swap, beggars belief!!!

I know it's hot, but is the weather that hot that even our wheelie bins are f'ing shrinking?! Angry

It is these straws that break our hardworking backs. Gin😣

OP posts:
LimboLuna · 11/07/2018 09:29

Noooo is it being returned or is that it?

PimpMyWheelieBin · 11/07/2018 10:16

A strange conversation finally with their (un)Help(ful) Line. Moments where I felt like I'd wandered into an alternative universe. Moments where I swear I could see tumbleweed blowing across the village green. Moments where time stood still here in rural England.

They claimed that our Big Wheelie was taken and shrunk because they hadn't received my form back confirming current DC full-time nappy use.

I countered, if that was true, then surely they would have taken and shrunk our BW months ago when they did it to all the neighbours' bins?! Not now, out of the blue?!

They couldn't answer that. There was silence. Then they said, as if it answered everything, 'well, you've had 2 visits'.

So, I asked them how I was meant to know that, with no knock on the door, call, letter, or card through the door. I informed them that I am not telepathic.

They couldn't answer that either, although my lack of telepathy was briefly acknowledged.

I asked why the person visiting had still taken our BW, only stopping to decant all the nappies in it over to the Toy Town Wheelie, when the presence of said nappies should surely have hinted a little something to him?!

They seemed a little startled that nappies had been decanted over, but reasoned that our BW was not taken on the first visit, just the second.

So, said I, the person noticed the nappies on the first visit and didn't take our BW, but on the second visit noticed them, decanted them over to the TTW, and took our BW - where is the logic in that?!

We reached an impasse.

They are sending me the form to fill in AGAIN. When/if they ever realise they've received it, they will let us have our BW back, but they couldn't say when. That's a Different Department, apparently.

In the meantime, in an unexpected and unprecedented display of generosity and flexibility, they offered to let us place extra rubbish in bin bags on top of TTW, without fear of fine or sticker. Doing so would only result in bag-ripping, nappy-scattering raids by the local wildlife, so I politely declined.

Like tonight's result, I'll believe it when I see it, but I dare to dream binsnetters, I dare to dream.

Wheelie's Coming Home, Big Wheelie's Coming Home.

OP posts:
thetemptationofchocolate · 11/07/2018 10:22

OP might I suggest that you keep all of this saga written down somewhere? With dates, and names of people you've spoken to.
I suggest this as in my own experience, these things drag on and on and by the time you are six months in you will not remember it all.

PimpMyWheelieBin · 11/07/2018 10:39

Thanks, thetemp. I thought I would refer them to this thread on mumsnet!

I do suspect that it might Drag On, yes.

I did suggest, given the hot weather, not being able to use binbags because of nightly visits from foxes, badgers and so on, and that it is their mistake not mine, they might want to pull their digit out.

OP posts:
LimboLuna · 11/07/2018 16:00

I got into a wheeliebin dispute with my council, I set a reminder to weekly resend the same email, but I’d resend it so it had the trail ofhow many times it had been ignored.
Eventually (it was 6-9 months) it was resolved

PimpMyWheelieBin · 11/07/2018 22:58

A week seems long enough, Limbo, never mind your 6-9 months. That's quite shocking. Good tactic though. I'm assuming you didn't get an apology, never mind a partial Council tax refund?!

I'm hoping I'm going to have more luck with it than you did, never mind England tonight....watch this space.

OP posts:
thetemptationofchocolate · 12/07/2018 09:21

We recently had an issue with non-collection, we went 6 weeks without anyone coming to get our rubbish. It dragged on for ages but we did eventually negotiate some money off the CTax. I think they drag things out in the hope that the customer will get fed up & drop it.

WeShouldOpenABar · 27/07/2018 18:41

@PimpMyWheelieBin did you get your bin back, I feel extremely over invested in your bin woes but I need to know!

murasaki · 27/07/2018 18:47

Croydon have now delivered the new bins, not what I was expecting. I thought we were getting extra recycling bins, and we did, but they are huge wheelie bins, taped up with instructions not to use them before September. So I now have 3 massive wheelie bins on the pavement outside the house as the yard is too small, as does everyone else. Which makes the street look great....AT some point I shall read the helpful instructions they stuck in the bin handles. Tossers.

LBOCS2 · 27/07/2018 21:58

Yep, we got ours last week. In a fit of rebellion we've already filled one of them with cardboard. We're trying to sell the house and it looks like a bloody recycling centre out the front 🙄

PimpMyWheelieBin · 30/07/2018 10:18

QUICK UPDATE

Hi all, more later, but just a quick update to let you know that THE BIN IS BACK!!!

OP posts:
dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 11:12

I have now discovered the horror of the 2 weekly food waste collection during hot weather....MAGGOTS 🤢😷. I felt like destroying the bin with a flame thrower but we tried bin deodorising powder but that didn't work. We now have a shit ton of salt in there, some bicarbonate of soda for the stench and have sprayed fly killer in as they were crawling on the sides and the lid. Used fly killer on the giant blue bottle flies that were laying their eggs round the lid too. Fucking gross! Will need to triple bag food to go in. Can't even put grass cuttings in on top to help as it's now keeps raining and the grass is wet

PimpMyWheelieBin · 30/07/2018 19:06

Oh yuck, demented!!! Having to triple bag it also defeats the object of using less plastic. Plus all the costs, (financial to you, and to the environment), of having to use chemicals. And unfortunately it sounds like more of us will have to deal with this, if more areas are bringing in 3-weekly rubbish collections, (we've been 2-weekly for a long time). Doesn't feel like progress or value for money, does it?!

OP posts:
dementedpixie · 30/07/2018 19:09

They are biodegradable food waste bags that the council gives us but it's still gross

TriggeredByHangingBaskets · 30/07/2018 19:28

We're entitled to a larger general waste bin (well, 1 big and 1 small) due to having 2 children in nappies. I put the request in on the council website the day my son was born, I think he was about an hour old. Priorities!
Anyway we're moving house soon and I'm taking the smaller bin with me, have even listed it on the solicitors forms. Love me some bin porn!

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