Neighbour has an opinion on where I put my bins

[Opink]

We live in on a very quiet cul de sac. The homes have large front gardens and small drive ways. Almost identical to photo attached (not my street just an illustration of our set up). Houses also have a side yard/paved side garden where people keep their bins.

Well I have decided I will keep my bins in front of my garage at the front. We have a dog who gets let out throughout the day. I have a lot of anxiety around my dog being let out as I am not always convinced the side gate is left shut. It gets opened when it is bin day. Every time I let the dog out I have to check to see if gate is close and when I see someone else letting the dog out I shout at them to check. It’s just unnecessary chaos. Ideally I will just put a padlock on the side gate so teens don’t mess up by leaving it open. We live 3 turns away from a somewhat busy b road.

Anyway, a neighbour has since come around and said please can I put the bins back into the side garden as it is unsightly. Granted I am the only person on the cul de sac with them out. But who cares??

I am not the arsehole, right?

edit: whoops looks like I took out voting somehow

I had a neighbour like this. She tried telling me because we lived in a conservation area I couldn't keep bins out front. I was waiting for a bin store to be built, pregnant, had a bad back, and our front garden and house is raised with railway sleepers. It would have meant carting bins up five steps, through a gate and down a step, up two steps, turn a corner and go up another step, just to get them out the back! Ironically she used to keep her bins out front (she vehemently denied this but street view over the years told another tale). Luckily she sold up and moved on.

I'm all for making things look neat and tidy if you can, hence I have now got a bin store. But live and let live...

It doesn’t!

Your street is full of nosey busybodies who need to mind their own business.

Do you actually understand how the valuation of an area works? A bin left out outside a £1m mansion would not down value a thing, neither would a bin left outside a £250,000 house. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the valuation of an area. It wouldn't even be a consideration in the value of an area. I'd love to see some statistical evidence that leaving bins out goes hand in hand with people not looking after their front gardens and letting them get messy and overgrown. I almost feel like I am trapped inside an episode of George and Mildred.

By that logic, if you’re paying for a train ticket, you have every right to play music out loud on your phone, and your fellow passengers should just put up with it.

Using headphones, and putting our bins away neatly, are things that we do because we live in a community and care about the impacts of our actions on people and places.

You really have an excuse for everything (and extremely pathetic ones at that!).

So you can’t be arsed solving this with a simple padlock? You can get one on Amazon to arrive tomorrow.

So basically you can’t be arsed putting a padlock on or checking when you let your dog out, and you can’t trust your family to keep your mutt safe?
Yeah, I would just keep moving the bins out of sight and you’d have to address your own dog problem.

Wow, with responses like these, I'm amazed OP is still replying - and politely at that!

She is concerned for the dog's safety, and we all know DC and DH/DPs who are careless about locking up, so what's with the vitriol?

Missing the point but where are you that you don't have to put your bins out early on bin day? Thought everyone had to put their bins outside then bring them back on their property when empty. In my opinion, as you have asked it's a little seedy to see them outside the front of houses and feel sorry for people who have no choice. But no way would I give my unwarranted opinion to a neighbour. Not worth the bad feeling.

There are nigh on a million pound villas in Hove and they still leave their bins out the front and it looks like a shit hole. So I don't think it really does do anything to prices. They probably don't care as they are surfing down the beach.

I'm always team Hyacinth and team Margo. Put the bins away simply because it will make your house look nicer for you too.
I'm enjoying the posts here saying leave them out and do what you want. The rebels! The libertines!

Stop being silly now!

Can you not keep the bins round the side and lock the gate, but move your bins to the front on bin day?

My bin storage is at the front of the house. It's where the bins have always gone because there is nowhere else to put them. I don't have anywhere to put them away. However I do keep my front garden tidy so as not to down value the area 😄

Good for them I say 🏄

If that's how your logic works I can understand why you think leaving a bin where someone might see it down values whole areas 😂

No, she would have to open the garage everytime they had to put rubbish in the bins.

It would also make the garage smell.

I agree with your neighbour that bins look messy. Some people don't have an alternative to leaving them in the front garden, but you do.
You could swap your son's Bin chore with another chore so you keep charge of the lock.
Alternatively, you could put a bin store in your front garden; they look quite neat and you can grow plants over them or put plant pots on top of them.

Can you move the gate so it’s further back and then the bins go in a store on the front garden side? Still keep the gate locked, but bins are not front and centre. Do you “feed” the bins from the front door now? I have one inside my garage (recycling) and two that go in an alcove that was built to hide bins out the front as they get too stinky to have indoors - my house is the same as yours, integrated garage.

A street of well-cared for three-bed semis with their bins neatly hidden away will absolutely be of higher value than an equivalent street where there are bins falling out all over the place, messy, overgrown front gardens and windows with peeling paint.

They should try living on my street. People's bins are in the middle of the pavement at all times so you have to walk in the road. Not ideal but your neighbour needs to get a life.

I would have said to the neighbour, ok then I'll leave them outside your house.

I wouldn't be entertaining this nonsense at all. It's no one's business what you do with your bloody bins, and incredibly rude to take it upon yourself to pull someone up on it.

The garage is part of the house - look at the photo. Entering the garage from an internal door off the kitchen is hardly a great hardship. It’s no more effort than going out the front door to put things in the bin.

And why are your bins smelly? You should be washing packaging before throwing it away to remove any food residue, so it’s only the food bin that would smell - but that’s easily contained within a bin that is kept closed.

Could you explain to me how leaving your bin out the front makes your grass grow faster and means you can’t cut it.

I don’t understand, is it food flying out of the bin makes compost, which aids grass growth?

How does it make paint peel on windows? Although who has wooden windows these days for paint to peel? Or is it another faux pa to have PVC or aluminium windows?

How do you know the OP has an internal door, lots don’t!

Wow I’m just amazed that anyone would complain about their neighbour doing this. We rent out a very pretty cottage right next to our house and our tenant ignores the purpose built bin area next to her parking spaces and puts two wheelie bins either side of her front door (actually on our land). We hate it because we see the bins when we look out our kitchen window etc and it looks so ugly.

I wouldn’t dream of raising it with her.

Britain was once an upstanding proud and polite society. Now it's just chaos and ruin. Dandelions, grass seed heads, moss. All the horrors. Definitely a result of @Opink's abandonment of bin care and lousy mid-week bin placement.