Aibu to have reported the dustbin lorry to the council?

[Bumpyroads]

Bit of back story us and our next door neighbours quietly dislike each other. Nobody has really said anything but I know we both annoy each other from what is said about the street. They moan about us, things we do etc.

Recently they have been playing loud music in the garden at the weekends in a passive aggressive way. This started when they complained about our chickens being noisy ( we have rehomed the chickens because of this but thats another story) the reason I'm saying all of this is because in general I am just in a bad mood about our neighbours and don't know if this has tainted my reaction.

So next door neighbour is a bin man, he wasn't at work.
Bin lorry come and parks up across my drive . Workmen get out and go in neighbours house/garden for 40 minutes having a drink and break. All this time I was unable to get off or access my drive. There was a bin lorry parked unattended across it.

So husband rings to complain to the council. They were confused as on their tracker the lorry was supposedly elsewhere. They also agreed 40minutes was excessive but said they must have been emptying bins? No they were having a cuppa at my neighbours! Council are going to investigate, I suspect they were taking unauthorised breaks and turning the tracker off.. maybe.

Anyway the reason this has also annoyed me so much is our neighbours have lived hear 30+ years and act like they own the street. Complain about anything we do (leaves from our trees fall in their garden for example.) They are 60+ and set in their ways and we are a young family. Tbh I just dont think they like us, we normally don't rise to it and smile and wave etc. But this time I had had enough and complained.

Aibu? And have we just started ww3?

Where do you think they park when they're on a break? Plenty of times the bin lorry stops at the bottom of our road for 30 minutes. I just assume they're on their lunch break and wouldn't even think about reporting them. Although I don't know if they block any driveways.

You are asking the wrong question. Why didn't the dustbin men use their brains or their words when they decided to park and block her drive when they could have easily "took the time" to picka free parking spot or blocked the drive where they were visiting. Instead they chose to create an issue and not the OP. Why couldn't they JUST have acted reasonably and there would never have been this situation.

And it wasn't like she was just out there taking photos, it was her ring bell that took the photos.

Knowing they were on an unauthorised tea break, they should have been more careful.

I think I understand why they dislike you. You seem to be going out of your way to shit stir, deliberately playing loud music, reporting bin men and Lorries that by your own admission were not inconveniencing you… things will only escalate from here. You should have just asked them to move it and tried to make peace with the neighbours. Depending where you live and the size of the gardens and proximity of the houses they may well have been disturbed by your chickens. What a good example you are setting your children teaching them that if you don’t get your way it’s ok to be a trouble maker

The neighbours are the ones playing the loud music and OP rehomed the chickens after the neighbours complained.

Sorry but you need to reread the OPs post. Its the neighbours that are playing the loud music, its the neighbours visitors that are blocking her drive so by your very reasoning, giving you have misunderstood, you are agreeing that the NEIGHBOURS are going out of the way to shit stir and not the OP.

She isn't bothered about them taking a break, she would have no way of knowing if it was authorised or not, she is complaining because, without any obvious and sensible reason, they have blocked her drive. More fool them if they are on an unauthorised break, you would have thought they would have been more considerate about their parking. They are the ones who made a decision to block her drive, there was likely no reason to block anyones drive, but if they had to, surely it should have been the people they were visiting? Had they been sat in the cab and someone wanted access they coudl have moved straight away but they were not.

Lets say the OP was out and she came home to find the bin lorry there, was she expected to run around the street to discover where the driver was? It doesn't make sense or reason and its unfair.

Ours go back to their depot

So you got basically got some bin men in trouble just because you don’t like their work colleague?

You sound like a peach.

I wouldn’t do it no, but I also wouldn’t have called and got the bin men into trouble because you were pissed off at your neighbour. especially when you didn’t even need to get out of your driveway.

I would have done what I assume most people would have done, had they actually needed to get out, and gone next door to knock and ask them to move the bin lorry

the postman regularly parks his van across driveways in my street. Should we all start calling and reporting him?

Shouldn't have too. They should park across a drive. It's a blocking offence. Would they like it done to the
More people need to redo their highway code and also like round when they park to see how they are situated.

The bin men are in trouble because they done wrong and got caught i didn't force them to park at the end of my drive. I am not responsible for their actions. It may not have directly affected the neighbout but he may have got a taste of how we have felt in the past.

Ok so this is going to be a long post, probably outing etc but i really need to explain we are not the bad people here.

This all started with the neighbour complained about our trees, we cut them every year, we are keen gardeners. Our garden is full but very well maintained we have won local awards for our garden. However it is not to the neighbours liking they would rather no plants (they have slabbed their whole garden)
This had to be we agree to disagree, we will prune them to a certain extent but we will not remove them because they drop leaves in their garden.

This started a sour relationship.

They make snidey comments about them working hard and us not so. Complained we had our curtains shut one day. Pointed out I had bird poo on my car. Called me fatty when i was pregnant. Lots and lots of little drips of comments over a few years to many to mention but you get the idea.

Things seems to change drastically when we got our pet chickens. 6 hens, large coop area, kept immaculately clean we spent a lot of money building a fox proof run for them etc. Quickly cleaned them every day, deep cleaned once a week, picked food up at night, shut them in at night, let them out 7am.
When next door asked us what we were building in the garden and we said a chicken coop she started swearing and shouting in the middle of the street. If she'd had expressed her concerns we would have shown them the coop, the research we'd done etc etc
They then complained the chickens were noisey, the seagulls/dogs/children around here are far noiser. They insisted we had a "male hen" infact we are not the only ones with chickens around here and I did hear a cockeral a few times but it wasn't ours.

We said we would keep them shut in later.

They then started playing the radio loudly at any given opportunity or whenever we were in the garden. This was so loud our other neighbours thought it was us.
They sucked any fun we had out of being in our garden, complained about the kids playing with next doors children out the front. Said our hedges were blocking their light (gardens are south facing and so hot and sunny its almost uncomfortable).
We garden all year and because we had just had a baby when the nights started drawing in we would sometimes go out there while baby slept around 5pm. It was dark but we enjoyed it. They didn't like it so flashed their flood light on and off every time we were out there to get us to go in.
They have banged on the wall when the baby cried. Said "well im not complaining about the baby.." whilst proceeding to complain about the chickens.
AGAIN music loudly all the time, but also the radio so loud you'd think there were builders there or something.
They then went on holiday and left their led disco lights on shining up at our bedroom this was intentional they rarely turn them on (they are bright the glow behind our blackout curtains was like someone had a huge TV on out there)
They were away for a week. During that time we rehomed the chickens we thought this would finally give us some peace. They got what they wanted. But no they have continued relentlessly.
They bitch about us to our mutual friends (neighbours), have security cameras pointing in both our front and back garden. We got bullied into giving up our pets and I refuse to be bullied anymore what gives them the right to dictate what we can and can't do.

So yes im at the end of my tether.

But again, you getting the bin men into trouble has not affected your neighbour. It’s affected no one but the bin men and will probably make relations with your neighbour deteriorate even further and make your living situation more difficult

Exactly so you have crap neighbours, although I would not be happy about having chickens due to the vermin their food attracts.but you haven't done anything to your neighbours. Yes relations with get worse obviously but presumably you knew that and chose to do it anyway.
All you have done is created another enemy and you don't want to make an enemy of someone who provides a service for you.

Well that’s quite the drip feed!! Which you wanted to avoid!

Oh honestly give the woman a break - I hear you OP and I get your stance.

All I’m hearing is but but but I’m justified.

I do wonder about drip feeds (or tsunami feeds) sometimes. It smacks of trying to come up with an excuse for an action in a lot of cases I find.

Again, the ire has not been taken to the object of the ire but has been slapped on to others.

I don’t think there is justification for that. No matter what one says/comes up with.

Sorry OP. They are awful neighbours and I suggest you get some cameras up (if you haven’t already) because they sound very confrontational and unpleasant. I would be logging every incident.

The bin men got into trouble because they were doing something they shouldn't have been doing how is the OP getting grief for this?! If the bin men hadn't parked over her drive she wouldn't have complained.

She has said she wasn’t going out.
Yes it was rude of the binmen.
She could have just asked them to move.
One of the binmen lives nest door, and on the other side is the father of one of the binmen.
Reporting them to the council will aggravate neighbours on both sides, and make OPs life even more difficult

How big are these garden ? So much in them it’s sounds like you are living at Chatsworth.

Dependent on the size of the gardens, I wouldn’t like a chicken coop next door - I would be worried about it attracting rats (again caveat being I don’t know the make up of the garden)

Your trees dropping leaves in their side - I think you probably should have trimmed it back, or cleaned the leaves up.

like the others, not sure how reporting the bin wagon was aimed at the neighbours.

True, but the driver for the complaint was the neighbour not the fact they were parked over the drive,

First OP denied that, then a huge drip feed and admitted it’s exactly why she complained.

Honestly, carrying bitterness like this helps no one.

The bin men decided to tke an unauthorised tea break - their choice the OP did not know this. They weren't discreet, they chose to block an innocent third parties drive when they could have used their legs and found a lawful parking spot elsewhere or, here's a thought, parked in front of the drive of the house they were visiting! They did not, they were thoughtless and inconsiderate and more importantly not exactly going under the radar for the break.

So what if the OP had some home and couldn't get in her drive, what did you expect her to do, run around the neighbourhood trying to find out where they were?

What gets me is that people are framing it that she was unreasonable for not speaking to them, and not the right way which is why they were so unreasonable by parking across her drive in the first place???

It sounds to me like the OP has tried to be conciliatory in the past and it has got her nowhere, as it continued so she needs to set boundaries. People who throw stones (the neighbours) shouldn't live in glass houses and they can either learn from their mistake or sadly continue,

No because they blocked her drive which was unreasonable, if they had to block anyones (and basically they could have found a proper parking spot and used their legs), it should have been the people they were visiting.

When I lived in a previous house, our next door neighbour wasn’t too chuffed about a van being parked outside his house, a friend of my daughter. He phoned the number on the side of the van and reported him for not being at work! 😳

Uuuugh as someone who works with the council, youd be surprised how often we are weaponised against neighbour disputes. Your neighbour won't get in trouble as he wasnt working, all youve done is potentially get the hard worked on shift bin workers disciplined for having a sneaky cup of tea for your own personal agenda against your neighbour. Grim and petty.