Bin dilemma!

[Joloman74]

So people, I have a dilemma and need some advice. I rent a flat above a shop and the shop owner is my landlady. I've lived here for about 2 years and everything has been great. Over the last couple of months however, I have noticed that said business are using my bins for disposal of their rubbish. On one occasion they had filled up my recycling bin with there waste and left no room for mine. The other day was bin collection day but I didn't put my bins out as they were only half full. I noticed out the window that one of the employees had put my bins out so that they could dispose of some large cardboard boxes and once my bins had been emptied, they had placed more of there waste from the business in the bottom of my bin. I'm actually furious about it, they have Never asked me if it's OK and because my landlady owns the shop I feel like they think they have a right. I don't want to upset my landlady for obvious reasons but at the same time I'm furious and want to say something. What would you do and what would you say? Please help, it's causing me so much frustration and anger. Thankyou in advance for any help X

It sounds like a reasonably minor dispute which could be sorted with a single chat with landlady?

Frustration and anger sounds like quite an extreme response for a bin - just politely say you need it and ask them to stop using it?

Bin locks?

Surely you just ask the landlady not to fill the bins up so you can't out your waste in.

I mean if it's bin day and they out them out and fill them then thats fine but shouldn't not leave space for your waste

Is it landlady’s employees doing it or landlady?
If it’s the former then tell the landlady but word it as such that you believe they’ve had a mix up and could she please remind them about the bins. If it’s the latter then bin locks.

They maybe haven’t realised it’s not their bin to fill.
A quiet chat with the landlady should sort it out. You need somewhere to put your rubbish and that’s why you pay your council tax.

I thought commercial waste couldn't go in domestic bins? It could mean your bin isn't collected

Get some wheely bin locks for the lid. Nobody will be able to use them and it doesn't affect them being emptied.

Oh for goodness sake are you really asking this seriously?

"Hi, I'm from upstairs. I'm not sure if you realise this but those (pointing) are my bins.

The trouble with you using them is that there's no room for my rubbish, so can you just use your own? Thanks".

Or are you going to dripfeed that they're all 15 stone musclebound violent ex prisoners or something?

And I'm really confused about the link in your OP because it leads to 'report post' where you've posted exactly the same thread, but titled it "Seriously thinking of leaving the UK" 😳

Bit of an over reaction to someone using your bin?! 🤣

No point being furious if you haven't even chatted to anyone about it yet. But honestly, you sound a bit precious. Even if your bin isn't full it's worth putting it out so that it's...y'know...empty. If you're not going to do it I see no harm in someone else popping a cardboard box in there and putting it out for you. What difference does it make?

If it's actually so full you can't use it then you just need to mention to Landlady that the shop are using your bin and making it unusable for you and ask what steps should be taken to avoid this.

I don't think you're overreacting at all, OP.

It's easy for people to say "Just talk to her" but she's obviously made the decision to use the bins, knowing that the tenant will then not have their own bins, and reckoned on avoiding paying for a regular trade waste collection at your inconvenience.

I wouldn't worry if it were just a little bit and it would be unused space that you wouldn't ever need yourself; but just taking the whole bin(s) and leaving you with no bin room at all is deliberate, selfish and certainly isn't coming from a respectful place.

If you ask her about it, I bet she'll just insist that they only use a little bit of space - but then keep on filling it all up just like before.

A lot of landlords are really bad at respecting their tenants' boundaries, and seem to think that, because they own the house/flat (for which you pay them rent), it's also their own home when it suits them.

When I was a student, 4 of us lived in a flat above a shop and the landlady (who ran the shop) and her staff also used our (only) bathrom/toilet.

It wouldn't have been quite so bad, except, after a few times of her waiting outside on our landing, giving us the evils, crossing her legs and doing the wee-wee dance whilst we had showers, she later told us that we couldn't have showers during shop opening hours - which extended several hours into the evening too, as she was a workaholic who would sometimes be in the shop (and thus potentially needing the toilet) until midnight or even later on a couple of occasions.

It got utterly intolerable when she also started letting customers use our bathroom as well. Once, one of us pushed the (slightly ajar) door, only to find a non-too-pleased man in there helping his little girl to use the toilet.

We also encountered people needlessly wandering into our own private areas as well - they may just have been too thick to understand "the toilet is right at the top of the stairs" or otherwise may have been pervs or wannabe thieves; who knew?

The landlady had a space at the back of the shop where she could easily have had a staff/customer toilet installed; she just didn't bother because them using our bathroom was only a problem for us, not for her.

Oh stop making excuses for grown adults to not politely talk to one another.

'I bet she'll say this' and 'she obviously thinks that'.

All nonsense if the OP isn't going to have a quick friendly word at least to start with.

Anonymously report the shop for fly tipping. Council should send someone round to enforce the business getting their own trade waste bins.

I'm not saying that OP shouldn't talk to her at all. I'm responding to the people who seem to think that it will achieve anything, and that the landlady will just say "Oh, silly me - I never realised that a household might need the facility to have their rubbish and recycling collected. I'll start paying for a regular trade waste contract to keep a service that I previously assumed for a long time was my right to take for free". A quick look online suggests that this would cost a minimum of £100 a month - and finding extra space for storing another bin.

She will almost certainly say something like the bins are shared between the shop and the flat and/or insist that the shop only uses a tiny little bit of the bin space, so OP should have plenty left.

As with my own sharing (and dominating) the bathroom experience, many landlords will see it as 'silly' or a waste of money to pay for their own facilities when they can 'just' share with their tenants - however much that impacts on said tenants.

They may even claim that the rent is lower to take account of the 'agreement', so any extra costs incurred by making alternative arrangements will need to be whacked straight on to the rental cost. OP could have her rent increased by £100 a month for the privilege of having her own bins.

By all means OP can speak to the LL about it, but I would be amazed if it results in OP regaining exclusive/adequate use of her own bins - and the LL will probably be aggrieved that she has complained about an arrangement that, to her mind, works just fine as it is.

The filling up your bin, get it a big problem.

I'd it's bin day and it isn't full and they're just filling it and putting it out for you, I could probably live with that.

I was thinking the same

The landlady will just assume that the locks are to prevent passers-by or other neighbours from using the bins.

It won't occur to her that it's to stop them in the shop from using it - so she will ask for and expect them to be given a key as well. If OP says Yes, it was all just a waste of time and money; if OP says No, she'll be painted as causing problems when there (in the LL's mind) were none before, and her card will be marked.

Either way, the LL isn't going to start happily paying £100 a month for something that she previously took for free.

@IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta how did you let her do that when a landlord has no legal right to enter your premises unless in an emergency? Are you not aware of tenants rights? It’s not a matter of the landlord presumption it’s illegal.
OP I am a landlord. I do own a flat above a shop. Waste from the shop is collected daily, and the cardboard does not have to be in a bin, just flattened and tied up. There are actually no tenant bins as there is nowhere to keep them, but it’s clear what is shop waste and what isn’t and they are not mixed. I would just have a friendly chat to your landlord saying you think the shop is ‘mistakenly’ using your bins and you need them for your own use. A kick as suggested is not a bad idea as you may have casual walkers by also putting rubbish/dog waste in your bin if it’s accessible.

@IfYouPutASausageInItItsNotAViennetta Wow that's an awful lot of (long) projection.
First, OP says she's seen an employee not the landlady using her bins. There's no evidence that the landlady just wants to use the bins for herself, it could just be a staff mix up and this is the best starting point for good communication to resolve this.
Second, I'm sorry you had that bad experience but you can't assume everyone is the same just because you had a bad landlord.
The advice to talk to the LL or get a bin lock is valid and IDK why you're automatically discounting it.

@mondaytosunday

This was 30+ years ago, we were students in a place where accommodation was at a real premium and we never actually had an official contract. It didn't occur to us to ask for one as young adults living away from home for the first time.

You sound like an excellent and responsible LL; but a huge amount of LLs are not like that. To be fair, I don't think she was deliberately trying to deny us our rights; she was just incompetent and a bit clueless.

An awful lot of LLs are firmly stuck in the mindset that they are doing you a favour by 'letting you stay at their place' and conveniently ignore the fact that you are paying them very good money for it.

Hopefully it is just a mix-up and the LL isn't telling them to do it. It's a bit odd that the employee wasn't told where the shop (commercial) bins were located when starting, assuming there are some. I'm sceptical, but I may well be wrong.

I think talking to the LL is a fair suggestion, in case there has been a genuine mix-up. The bin lock alone - and not giving them a key - will definitely come across as passive aggressive, though.

It will be seen in the same light as people who put locks on their milk in a communal fridge. If you have a lock on your front door, it's to prevent anybody from getting in; but when you put a measure in place that's only there to prevent a few specific people from stealing your food/facility, it carries the very clear accusation that you believe they would do it.