People not showing pride in their homes

[Auburngal]

Talking about those who leave the front of their homes (owned) in a state.

For example there’s a house down my parents road who has an old fridge freezer on their driveway for 5 years! Don’t understand why people spend several hundred quid on white goods don’t buy them from a retailer who takes the old one for free or for £10. I paid the retailer £10 to take my old washer away and to recycle it accordingly.

Then there’s a house opposite me who had their bathroom replaced and left the old loo and other bits outside the home for several months. A decent bathroom fitter would take the old stuff away as part of the package.

Then another family down my parents road have old children’s toys in their garden- play house, sand pit etc. The kids are too old for these toys now.

Then are properties with hedges on the road and used as a ‘bin’. Unless the owners have mobility issues - then there’s no excuse to remove the rubbish from the hedge.

People spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on their homes but I hate it when they show no care.

People need to show pride.

I am a member of a community litter picking group.

So instead of judging why aren't you helping?? As a single parent working full time and then some, with zero help and no money I often have stuff outside. I often cant afford to get it taken away. You're in a community litter picking group, why not start a community good will group? Try understanding that not everyone is as fortunate as you and that many people would be grateful of some help in their busy lives.
You might also become a nicer person.

I have a friend who takes my bin out and I pay for a gardener from my PIP. I also pay for a cleaner to clean my house.

I live alone and my closest child lives over an hour away (they moved for work). The other two are in London, which they also moved to for work but is not near me. My siblings and family of origin are not in the UK. My parents are dead.

I am not alone - there are lots of people like me, just we tend to be behind closed doors and all you see is the messy garden.

I manage to keep working, but that takes all of my mental reserves and by the time I have done that, and done the basics to take care of myself, I have no spare resource.

I agree with you Op. I live in a small cul de sac, 9 houses in total. My kitchen window is at the front of the house overlooking our tiny little front bit, then a waist high wall and then parking spaces for each house. Directly facing us are three houses (same set up). The bloke on the end gets out of his car, drops his coke can or whatever where he stands. It has got worse over the months and It honestly looks as if a rubbish bag has split open now with his litter.

Also on his waist high wall in front of his kitchen window he has an old tyre, inside the tyre is a broken drawer and the bottom half of a kids trike (all perched on the wall). Worst of all - the leaves. Now I get that piles of leaves are a pain. We have two massive willow trees in the cul de sac, they deposit a lot of debris during the year.

The rest of us periodically clear away what we can and put in our brown garden waste bins. He has a 3 foot pile of tree rubbish piled in the parking spot next to his (not used as they have no car) that he then covers with large bits of rotten wood panels (don’t ask me why). He uses the wooden panel to scrape the leaves from his parking to the empty one. It’s a feckin eye sore, literally the first thing you spot driving in to our close is his rubbish strewn everywhere, his junk on the wall and untidy pile of leaves crowned with his large rotten wood panels.

Is he too busy, too infirm, too unwell, suffering with depression etc? Bollocks, he’s a lazy arse with no pride is what his issue is.

@ZingyShaker I understand that you have to rely on other people. In our village we tend to know who lives where and most people are quite neighbourly. If I was your neighbour I would pick up any litter you had.

It is people like @maddiemookins16mum has described that make people despair. There are plenty of them out there. When we go walking it's surprising how much litter you see that has been thrown out of cars.

I remember when I was a child we used to have a man litter picking daily as a job. There is no such thing now.

Not judging and no offence meant! But I def notice this when I go to England. Majority of people in Northern Ireland seem to take great pride in their homes inside and out. That is whether they are well off or not so well off. This is regardless if they own or rent. My kids will even slag their English Dad if outside our house gets a bit untidy and the grass needs cut. I don’t even need to raise the issue as my teen daughter does it for me 🤣

I don’t actually see it so much as taking pride in my home, but looking after my investment. I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on it, why would I let it fall to bits

Despite living in a new build we never had recycling bins. We could put whatever we liked in the bins & it would be taken away. I used to leave stuff I didn’t want outside on the car park, someone would take it within hours. Old clothes I’d take to the chaza. If I couldn’t be bothered or had large items I had a couple of neighbors who’d always take it off my hands.

Now we’ve moved we recycle. I’m all for it, but what about the stuff that no one wants? If you don’t drive you can’t get to the tip. Free collection can only be booked once a year, otherwise you have to pay. You used to be able to have 3 collections of large goods, or so many black bags. Paying is not a problem, but it is when you have already paid & someone takes it before they turn up to collect it. Then they knock you at 5am to see where the stuff is. You have to drag the large item to the end of the pavement, how do elderly people manage? You can’t get anyone to help at the weekend either in case it rains, you can’t leave it out in the rain.

Op, I did intend to say what dirty bastards …. Can’t even be bothered to have decent curtains or blinds up the windows. But most workers don’t take their own rubbish away any more, they have to pay & they don’t want to. They will either put it in your bin without asking, or ask & you don’t like to say no as they’ve done a job in your home. I don’t know where you live or where you buy your stuff from. But it’s not been £10 for ages, they want £20 to take something away now. I'm exhausted after reliving all that.

Really? Ive walked past many a house with crap in the garden and I've honestly never thought to judge, don't get me wrong I'm deffo judging people who have filthy homes on the inside especially if kids have to live in there. But a few old toys or a fridge in the garden? Just meh I couldn't care less. Lots of mention of how it's especially unacceptable if they own the home as opposed to renting but I think it's the other way around, that's THEIR land they can do what the hell they want with it.
Before someone accuses me of having a sofa in my garden I'll just add that I don't even have a garden 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, I totally agree with you. Of course some people have issues with mental and/or physical health. II have had real struggles with my own mental health as well as as several spells in hospital for physical stuff, emergencies and planned stuff and at these times of course cleaning and house maintenance was not an option or a priority. However, where I live there as so many people who do not care and do not care how much it impacts on the wider community. Take bins for example, people leave them out for years on end, they then heap black bags all around them which just looks vile as our house open straight out onto the pavement. I asked the guy a couple of doors down from me to put his bin away , he told me to "Go fuck yourself, I do what I want". So nothing to do with being frail, or ill, simply a matter of being lazy and entitled. I hate putting my bin in and out, it is a real pain, I have to unlock my back door, unlock my yard gate and then unlock the communal gate and it takes about 10 mins but I do it and bring it in again because I like to think that I am a reasonable person who considers others. I don't leave it out because of parents trying to get by with buggies, disabled people and people who have poor sight.

This is an interesting thread and something that I think about a lot as I live in an area that is rife with fly tipping and general litter and loads of houses that are in a right state with yards crammed with crap. Some streets round me are fine,but my street has really gone downhill and I do not think that street A is home to people who are all hale and hearty while my street is occupied with a majority of residents who are all facing a multiplicity of health challenges. There are loads of BTL properties and a lot of them are unofficial HMOs, little two up two downs that are massively overcrowded which means of course that there is loads of rubbish. I have a house like that next door to me, there are at least 10 adults in and out of there, the occasional child, the back yard is home to the most incredible amount of rubbish. The landlord does nothing, the guttering is hanging off, the rendering is breaking and dropping into the communal entry and is really dangerous, the fencing is totally broken. In my opinion it is a combination of a lot of factors, bad landlords, tenants who do not know how to pursue their rights or who may be too scared to, people who cannot do stuff and people who simply do not give a damm

I don't back your opinion at all and I have a lovely home in a lovely setting but many, many people have health or social issues going on which means they are unable to get rid stuff outside there home, they may be trying to hold down a job with young children and no support, health impairment which nobody can see, caring for a dependent or stuggling in domestic situation. It might be helpful to them to find out what service disposes of appliances etc and post the number on social media....but if there is a cost involved it is much more difficult for people. Do you know anybody who would volunteer to mow lawns for the price of petrol? Maybe you could volunteer every so often for the worse houses nearby.....you never know you may be helping out someone who is struggling. And if you provide a volunteer job wish the client well and walk away. Don't discuss other people's business or who you volunteer for as it will appear patronizing instead of helpful and functional to somebody in tough times. They don't need an opinion or judgement they need help

The need to drag items to the pavement was a huge problem for me.

When Mum was still here, social work insisted that she had to get a hospital bed. (Our carers said that it wasn't needed.) I asked whether the men delivering it would help me carry her old bed to the garage.

No.

The Care Manager seemed astonished when I said that I had no one to help me. I recall saying "You do realise that my husband is a stroke survivor?"

"No..." [This in spite of the fact that both my husband and my mother were known to social services.] "There must be someone else."

"I have no siblings and no children."

"A neighbour, then."

"The man next door has dementia. The chap across the road has spinal cancer. I'm usually the one who helps the neighbours."

"If it has the fire label, you can get a charity to uplift it." [It hadn't.]

She made it very clear that it was my problem. In the end, I removed the headboard and footboard and took them to the garage separately. Then I wrapped the [small double] mattress in plastic, put a board on the exterior steps and dragged it to the garage. Ditto the base. To this day, I don't know how I managed.

Of course, the bed deteriorated in the garage. When I booked it in for council uplift, I had to drag the damned thing to the kerb myself and watched as two strong men chucked it into the back of the landfill truck and turned it into matchwood.

Footnote: three grown men came to deliver Mum's hospital bed. She only lasted another fortnight.

That was 9 years ago. I couldn't do it now. Come to think of it, it probably contributed to my shoulder trouble.

I'm trying my damnedest with my place, but sometimes life wears you down.

I spent years being woken up very 2 hrs by the invalids in the house - not their fault. Doesn't leave you with the energy to keep on top of things, particularly when you're working during the day. Now that I'm on my own, I'm trying to get back to normal.

I have a decent roofer who has done some repairs for me and doesn't rip me off. I have drain issues caused by bad workmanship and the contractor responsible trying (and succeeding) to abdicate all responsibility. (I've been advised that taking him to court would be costly and I'd be better off putting my money towards repairs. One solicitor wanted 1.5k up front plus 1k a day for court. Another solicitor warned me that the contractor will claim that I was aware of the problem and that I'll not be able to prove otherwise.)

Until I get the drains fixed, there's no point in trying to get my garden back to normal. At the moment, I'm making do with squirting a handsprayer with weedkiller. (A large one would be more efficient, but I can no longer cope with carrying a pump operated model around.)

I have drains insurance, but of course it doesn't cover bad workmanship. Sometimes life just smacks you in the face.

So funny I was literally saying this to my husband the other day. There are a few houses I regularly walk past, one has a sofa and three literally mouldy cars and loads of other crap. Another has sofas, mattress, old car seat the list goes on. I just think it’s disrespectful to the neighbourhood and to yourself tbh. Once people start caring for their houses littering reduces and it’s nicer for everyone. I don’t think people need to be perfect but I keep my garden front and back tidy and weeded/ hedges trimmed etc. I did it when we lived in a council estate opposite a block of flats when no one else did. Some people don’t care and nothing will change that, it still pisses me off. If I had the time and the money I’d happily go around tidying up front gardens for people, I would find that very satisfying.

It's not my litter though. i didn't put it there. Why should i or you or anyone have to dispose of someone else's rubbish? I have to pay for big collections, and I'm going to have to pay to get rid of a spacehopper that's half deflated and a kids green tractor (which is broken). And that's not fair and it's not my fault.

How is this any of your business?

There is an app called Tiptap in London ... you can mysteriously pay for these dumpings to be removed 😂😂

I genuinely don't understand what's funny?

I'm not in London and there is no such app available here.

Is there a word for the opposite of patriotic? 🤔 Because it would describe a lot of people on this site constant bitching about how horrible the UK is and how every where else is some paradise.
So you went through the nice touristy parts of Europe and it looked nice? You realise there are also shitty parts of mainland Europe too but tourists don't drive through them

Fridges can be difficult. They now demand the freezer is totally dry before they take it. Collection day can be a different day.

However, most councils do take them away for a relatively small fee.

OMG OP I am 100% with you. My in-laws live on the most beautiful 1980s estate street and every single house on the close is absolutely immaculate - except theirs which is at the entrance of the close. The first time I saw it I was utterly shocked. Garden overgrown, piles of rubble ect on the drive rusty old ornaments, concrete pots with stinging nettles overflowing in them either side of the front door. My FIL was a medical professional on £120k a year, MIL full time socialite. Why they wouldn’t employ a gardener I have no idea. I feel so sorry for all the other home owners on the street as they all take so much pride in the street. All the neighbours avoid PIL. MIL thinks it’s because ‘they are racist against foreigners’ (been here over 20 years). They are so lazy and unkept in so many aspects of life I literally despair.

Do what most people do - rent a van/hire a man with a van/ask a friend with a van. Put something out on FB; you'd be amazed how many people will help you move your crap for $25

You do know that not everyone has money to spend on getting rid of other people’s rubbish?

Sounds like a council estate, what is the income demographic. Sad to say that low income and low education equates to grotty areas