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

The goof of the community being the neighbour. 😂
A brilliant Freudian slip.

I think it depends on the type of house and type of road you live in.

We only see neighbours’ bins on bin day.

I don’t think you do 😁

My bins are happily living in the open for all the world to see!

Seriously, The root cause to this problem is the dog running away and the untrustworthy son. The solutions of a padlock or a gate closer just mask the real issues. Both son and dog can be trained with minimal effort.

Haha this cannot be serious.

The bins as a gateway drug. 😂

First it’s the bins out the front. Before we know it, the grass won’t be cut, there’ll be green algae on the slabs and a can of Coke on the windowsill. How will anyone go on?

Yeah I’m with the neighbours on this one. Just looks bone idle. Despite reading the whole thread, I still can’t quite understand the logic in leaving them out the front of the house. Dog / kids / padlock / shouting a lot, just keep the bins down the side.

I love the fact that there are still people out there that give a shit about keeping their neighbourhood looking clean and tidy.

Before you know it OP will be on the drive in her Matalan dressing gown snorting lines of coke off the lid of the green bin, whilst screeching at the escapee dog and swearing at the kids. I mean, where does it end?

I do think it’s pretty scuzzy to have wheelie bins outside.

In the USA, they are much more strict. We have a holiday house in Florida - think one of those Stepford-esque developments where the houses back onto manmade lakes and everything is very neat and perfect.

Bins have to be stored away from public view. They can’t be placed outside for collection more than 24hrs in advance, and have to be brought in by 6am the following day. The idea of having them in front of the house for convenience is anathema. The association is very quick to fine anyone breaking these rules.

When I come back to the UK, I do compare and notice how little pride some people take in their streets and frontages.

We have a bit of property in front of our fence as we wanted the fence to be six foot tall so we had to go back from the curb.

one week when DH was away and I was really struggling with sciatica I left the bins on this bit of land so they directly face the house opposite. This mean I was not having the put the bin out and then drag it back in, the bin men could just grab it. It was less hassle to do little trips with rubbish and recycling rather than drag the bin.

the cow across the road reported us for having bins on the pavement. When she came over to tell me with a smug look on her face saying she hated looking at them I just said ok and walked off back inside.

I waited for the letter from the council and then took photos and sent them back via email. Got a reply from the council saying we had the right to put the bins there.

guess where the bins stayed?

hers is the only house that faces us.

let it slip to the Neighbour next to me that if only she had asked nicely they would have been gone after a week. But as it happens we decided it was less hassle to have them there.

This neighbour took great delight in telling cow women this (she has reported neighbours kids for making too much noise in their garden)

so they face her house all the time and she can’t do a dam thing about it.

You can put your bins where you like but it does look shit into have them in front of the garage door so get where your neighbour is coming from.

My next door neighbours have both fitted a really fugly garage door, AND they keep their bins in front of them?!? .What really fucks me off though is that they tore down the tall hedge in between our properties which, if it was still there, would mean I didn't have to see their fugly garage door or bins. So thanks for that.

Have said nothing to them though about any of this as they can obviously do what they like, I do quietly judge and feel secretly annoyed about it. I am also less likely to be considerate of them in the future too, so there's that.

It looks unsightly but they don't get a say.

They're more unsightly round the back as I have a look at them from our bedroom - bungalow.

The real issue is that you have careless teens who forget their keys and can’t close a gate properly.

I understand the worry about dog escaping, but I don’t understand how having the bins out the front makes this any better. Everyone would need to take rubbish/recycling out the front door instead to put in the main bins throughout the week, surely your dog could escape out the front door too?

I think the easiest solution is to put a lock on the gate, teens will soon realise they need to remember their keys like everyone else.
Give him a different weekly chore and just do the bins yourself for all the stress it’s causing.

Yes, bins out front look shabby and tacky and low-end. I don't blame your neighbours.

Store the bins in the garage or teach your children to be responsible with the gate.

You are just using the dog/teens as misguided justification for putting the bins out front. The position of the bins is completely irrelevant as regards a potential dog escape.
There is no reason why the bins can't be at the side behind a locked gate. You don't have to do it for the neighbours, just do it to show some pride in your own home and neighbourhood.
Bins out front look really nasty and tacky when you have a perfectly good place to keep them at the side. I appreciate that some homes do not have an ideal place for bins (e.g. some terrace/town houses) but yours does. Use it, and be grateful that you have it.

I think the USA could worry about more things than bins left out.

Priorities and all that!

Forget the gun crime issues.

Dear god! Now it’s new garage doors that offend the eyes.

Honestly, the horror of having to cast your eyes on a in your opinion “fugly” door.

This is exactly why you don’t allow neighbours to start dictating anything to you about bins, its a drug gateway to them starting dictating your choice of garage door, then your daffodils aren’t straight, your winter pansies the wrong colour,

I always kept my bins out the front in my last house (currently in a flat). No-one said anything, but they probably did look a little unsightly, but seriously do people actually care? I can’t imagine the day i’d go to a neighbours house and ask them to take bins in. Sorry but by dog would take priority; she needs to get a life

It is quite a scummy habit if there are alternatives.

I live in inner-city mid terrace, surrounded by HMOs. I take my bins to the side alley, so do the elderly couple few houses down but all the single young males seem physically unable to bring their bins in/out or even shut the lids. Poor souls.

The naice leafy streets don't have the walls of bins everywhere even if there's much more space to leave them out front...Go figure.
I know where I'd much rather live.

Calm down. I live in flats, all the bins are out at the front because there's nowhere else to put them. Come to that most of the houses on my road have bins out at the front. It's a nice area. It's not antisocial, for goodness sake. You sound rude, however.

Oh God this.

its such a Hyacinth Bouquet word. And it’s always the thin end of a wedge which ends with this neighbour writing you self important letters telling you what to do.

You need to put a boundary bin place now. Trust me.

I’m not sure I’d even notice this, but if asked I would say it makes the house/road look worse. I used to live in a council that wouldn’t allow bins out the front unless they were in a bin store.

Sorry, I quoted wrong post.

I think the fact everyone does it is the key.
In this situation only OP is doing it, the rest have clear front gardens.

Let’s be honest, wheelie bins cluttered outside houses isn’t a nice look generally, even though a lot of houses don’t have a choice. I sometimes try to remember where all those silver dustbins were when I was a kid as I don’t remember ever seeing them.

i’m struggling to understand how putting your bins out the front stops the dog from getting out. Surely your front door has to be opened to put stuff in the outside bins, and the dog can then escape via the front door?

In fact it seems like the risk is increased, because there’s only 1 door. With a side door/ side gate, it can operate as an ‘airlock’ system where only 1 is open at a time .

I agree with this. I wouldn't put them in the back because of the neighbour but because I think it looks better if you can't see them.

I've got a dog who runs away and my bins are at the back. The number of times I have to take rubbish or recycling to the bins exceeds the number of times I have to take the bins from the back to the front. It would be a pain if I had to shut her away every time I wanted to put something in the bin.

I had this worry as my dog is a bolter given any opportunity so I had a 2nd dog gate put at the end of the side passage so even if the front side gate was open the dog was still contained. Not sure of your set up but would something like this work?