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.

I think you need to mind your own business.

Never mind noticing things in your own street, but paying attention to homes in your parents street and quoting how many years the offending items have been there.

And to hate other people not showing any care - bizarre.

Allow people to live how they want to and you concentrate on yourself.

@Nannyfannybanny

Why shouldn't your bin be in your front garden? It's the norm in most places in cities at least (ours is around the back but only due to the layout)

Old fashioned🤔

I live in a rented property but look after the front and back gardens - where does that leave me a OP?! <wibble>

There are so many excuses in this thread! Lots of people obviously live in a tip!

( earlier someone mentioned sort your life out. Last week particularly was ridiculous. They BOTH got made redundant in covid, yes bad for finance but good for time. Yet neither of them tidied up, despite being stuck in the house, with no job pressures, they continued to live in a pigsty. The state of that house and their poor kids , they should be ashamed. It would be neglect in some cases)

If only this was the sole lack of pride. Just look at how scruffy and awful many people are, and compare say with the French.

I find it fascinating that so many people care about other peoples front gardens. Do you feel the same about their muddy cars?

That's why I live in (gasp!) an HOA community in the US. The HOA enforces the "no miscellaneous crap lying around" rule. It makes the community a very lovely place to live.
Previously I lived in a rural area and many people were absolute pigs. In fact, pigs are cleaner. I'll never understand why some humans will wallow in mess and filth. It's lazy and beneath human dignity.

Have you got a sofa and a fridge on your front garden?

Time poor, cash poor, other things on their minds.

No. If my neighbours did I wouldn’t really care though. I don’t really have that “keeping up appearances” urge about that sort of thing.

Some maybe. If my relatives or friends couldn't manage I would help them.

Some too idle.

when it comes to front gardens - not mowing or trimming hedges can be a good thing. We do no mow may so I’m sure if you were my neighbour you’d be horrified, my front lawn is a mix of moss and weeds and my hedges are wild and not trimmed. I much prefer that (so does the wildlife) to nearly trimmed.

Quite.

It shows a remarkable lack of ability to empathise or consider other people have different priorities or responsibilities to them.

It reflects on them.

It demonstrates a closed mind. And that they are extremely privileged and rather shallow if this is their priority in life to put on a show to the neighbours.

Do you really know who rents and who owns in your neighbourhood? I might know for one or two if they have changed hands recently- but in the main I have no idea

Same here. One house keeps their recycling bags and kitchen waste bin outside the front every day. Despite having a back garden and a side gate. Really looking forward to when we get a wheelie bin to add to it. We have to put up with bits of their recycling floating down the road because the don't close the bags up, and they'll step over the bits several times during the day. It just laziness and selfishness. And it's a decent road, not run down or cheap or all rented - these are people who have paid good money for their own house but can't be bothered to make minimal effort.

@Auburngal You can join the "what screams frumpy thread. Lots of your sort of people there....

Our tip is very fussy about what it will and won't take so we have to hire a skip. There's no way that skip isn't getting completely filled so sorry I put rubbish in front garden first. On the other hand our local scrap dealer is easily located on Facebook.

YANBU it is laziness and slovenliness. It's a bad attitude and lack of care towards your neighbours and it can bring an area down which can affect your house price. I think certain standards do need to be maintained . Like someone else said, not particularly involving money but just being clean and tidy. Councils do have a relatively cheap bulk household goods removal which can be saved up for , or the ' tip' is usually included in your council tax, if you have sun faded unused plastic toys etc in your front garden for months believe me ,I'm judging you.

Err, no ! The tip is NOT 'down the road'. It's a 34 mile round trip and requires a pre-booked appointment.

Wow, some people really have no clue, do they ! 🙄

I suspect many of those who attack the OP for privilege and not caring about people with mental health or financial problems have not lived in streets where this kind of waste fly tipping in your garden/front of house actually goes on.

We don’t mean those people who have something outside for a few days or weeks while they are getting it sorted. And we don’t mean someone who leaves their lawn uncut for a month while waiting for the council to mow it. As the OP explained she is talking about stuff like old white goods left outside for years.

Of course garden fly tipping is depressing and demoralising to live amongst and the sad thing is that existing waste left around encourages others to treat the place as their own waste dump. There is plenty of research showing that. And good luck if you want to sell your house and have an unofficial tip next door— I would not even consider buying a house blighted like that as I would suspect it wasn’t the only type of antisocial behaviour that the neighbours would indulge in. Yes that is prejudice but we all prejudge, however immoral some may think that is.

For those who think we are unfairly judging people with mental health issues or financial problems, consider this. In some countries and regions—Germany, Singapore and some parts of the USA come to mind—fly tipping of unwanted goods in your garden is simply not tolerated. If you do it, you get a visit from the police or council and risk a hefty fine. I am certain that those countries, like the UK, have many people who are mentally ill and struggling with money. But somehow they manage to do their civic duty and get their rubbish removed properly.

What’s different about the UK? Too many people put up with sh*te standards and our police and local authorities are either too under resourced or can’t be arsed to deal with it. The bleeding hearts who claim that messy people can’t help it are part of the problem.

By the way the same goes for another sort of antisocial behaviour, neighbour noise. In other countries I have lived in it is considered unacceptable to subject others to unnecessary noise and if you do it, someone (police or local authority) will come down on you like a ton of bricks. So on the whole, people don’t do it. It is quite simple. Here in the UK I think we like to make things too complicated by making excuses for bad behaviour.

We have a hedge and people keep throwing rubbish in to it. I usually remove it once a week but don't see why I should.
When my dad died I didn't bother for 2 months as I barely had enough energy to function. Sorry if that offended you.

I just can't cope with keeping the garden in order on top of everything else I have to manage. I mow when I can, but that has to be when I'm not working and when DS can cope with the noise/me not being around/whatever.

We're not lazy, we're exhausted.

Also don't understand how something like a fridge can be left out the front for years. If we left an old fridge outside it'd be gone within a week, as the scrap metal guy would come round a take it. Where I used to live anything metal put outside, you'd have someone knocking on your door within an hour asking if they could have it.

Not saying it doesn't happen, I know it does, but it seems like it would take more effort to keep it.