To pick up rubbish outside my house?

[zippedyzzzzooo]

I'm genuinely confused here re whether I'm crazy.
So, if there's rubbish from someone else's recycling or just random wrappers in my front garden/on the drive then I'll pick them up and put them in the wheelie bin.
Was at the in-laws on Saturday and as I was going into their house I noticed a dominos pizza leaflet on their front pavement. I picked it up and when they opened the door I said "this was blowing outside" and went to hand it to them.
They responded with "well it's not ours. We don't want it" and just stared at me holding it. I said "well shall I pop it in the bin?"
They replied "no. It's not ours" and told me to put it back where I found it.
I felt uncomfortable throwing litter back onto the floor (especially in front of my children) so I ended up putting it in the car and disposed of it when I got home.
Please tell me I'm not going crazy, and that normal people put other peoples rubbish in their own bin rather than let it blow down the street?!

@zippedyzzzzooo

I only handed it to them as I wasn't sure if they wanted it in their kitchen bin, or if they had a wheelie bin somewhere. I was expecting them to say "stick it in the wheelie bin, it's down the side path" for example. They also don't recycle a single thing, which blows my mind. They do an extra 2 tip runs per week to get rid of their bin bags as they won't all fit in the wheelie bin. And all sanitary towels and nappies get bagged and put in the dog poo bin down the road so they don't have to have them in their bin. Very strange.

Well that's all super weird. People who don't recycle should be shot at dawn (not really). Given this update it all makes sense, they are weirdos.

YANBU for picking up the litter but YWBU to hand it to them, you should have put it in the bin yourself.

@HeddaGarbled

Your inlaws are VVVU. Awful people

Oh for goodness sake! They are not awful people because they don’t do exactly what you do.

There they are, living their decent, law-abiding, perfectly normal lives, keeping their home immaculate, and their daughter in law turns up and tries to hand them some dirty crap she’s picked up of the ground and they don’t want to touch it, and now they’re “awful people”?

Leave the poor sods alone.

"decent, law abiding perfectly normal lives" is going a bit far. They put household waste in community dog poo bins (not law abiding). They don't recycle (not decent). It's not perfectly normal to behave as they do, and I think it's socially unacceptable.

I thought YANBU and then I wondered what I’d do if someone handed me a bit of rubbish from the street rather than put it in my bin. I’d be baffled. Maybe they were just wondering why you are handing it to them, maybe they thought you wanted them to have it.

Maybe the fact you said ‘this was blowing around outside’ and offered it to them was confusing, maybe ‘this litter was outside, can I put it in your bin’ might have made things clearer?

YABU to hand litter to them and not just put it in their bin
YADNU to pick litter up, I do it outside ours all the time.

Totally normal, I do it too. I’ve had to pick other peoples dog shit up before now when it’s been in front of my drive which is absolutely vile. I started scattering black pepper all over the pavement so it stopped doing it.

I pick up litter from outside my own house. I wouldn't pick up litter from outside someone else's house and hand it to them upon my arrival, though.

And all sanitary towels and nappies get bagged and put in the dog poo bin down the road so they don't have to have them in their bin. Very strange.

^^ OK, that's insane

Always clean up outside - years ago more people did it and the pavements were cleaner.
People were also less messy.

I think people should bear in mind that people with certain conditions (including OCD and potentially people who are immunosuppressed) could feel very distressed by being presented with someone else's rubbish at their door.

The way that your PIL refuse to put anything dirty in their bin (e.g. nappies) makes me think one of them probably has some issues going on.

Yes, I wouldn't say I have particularly high standards for cleaning but I like the front of my house to look tidy. We often get sweet wrappers and cans in the front garden and it wouldn't occur to me to just leave them there. I also weed where the pavement meets my garden wall a few times a year to keep it looking neat (just don't look upstairs of my house or at the back garden ).

I pick up any litter outside our house and the immediate neighbours. It is central London so the houses are close together. It just seems like a natural thing to look after our environment.

I think YABU, purely from that perspective of handing your host rubbish from the street. It’s a bit rude.

I personally would pick up rubbish from my own front garden and hope others would do the same, but to knock on someone’s door and give them rubbish seems very odd to me and I’d expect short shrift. I’m quite surprised by the responses.

That’s not to say I’d have acted like you MIL, or that she was right to do so, just that your own behaviour could have been perceived as rude.

They’re the odd ones.