Reported to social services

[Badwowwow]

My local authority went on to fortnightly collections and since then I have struggled so much with rubbish! I have 4 kids and there is too much to last 2 weeks! I don’t have a car so can’t take it anywhere myself and can’t dump it anywhere. So because of this and it being Xmas I have had extra rubbish! A few times the foxes have torn the bags open if it’s not in the bin and I clean it but still left with additional rubbish as my local authority won’t collect any additional rubbish and will only collect what’s IN the bin. I have admitted this is a struggle for me as sometimes bin collectors don’t turn up then I’m left with a situation where the rubbish hasn’t been collected for even longer. Well someone has reported me to SOCIAL SERVICES!! Because of this, Social services! Really! I’m so upset that someone would do this. What will happen now?!

I understand your frustration op but ultimately its your responsibility until your council sort out more frequent collections and you need to shout about it. I would contact a local politician to challenge the lack of waste management in your area, there's a systemic issue here at play that needs better resourcing on a community level and tbh I'd be asking neighbours to do the same. Are you private renting/ social housing/ owner? If the prior could you speak to your landlord about helping with waste management maybe they would split the cost of a bin for you if it helps you maintain the property? If its social housing then I'd be pushing the housing officer to liaise with the council re: waste management.

I understand the council won't give you an extra bin but can you buy an extra bin from them? I would also be looking at how much waste is coming into your house so when you're buying etc look at the packaging and avoid it where you can. Does your local supermarket have recycling points you could use when you go shopping without giving yourself an extra run somewhere? Could you get a cheap shed/ large storage box and use it to store rubbish and then every now and then book a waste removal run? Some councils where I am do this for free and some for a charge. It would stop animals getting in to it in the meantime at least.

Don't stress about the SS referral. If your home is properly looked after and the kids are well cared for they will fulfil their obligation to investigate and they'll close it off quickly. I would just let them contact the school tbh. The school will just be confirming that there are no identified issues with neglect etc and then that will be that. They'll have dealt with these things enough to know that it doesn't mean anything is wrong.

@Badwowwow it's between 13 and 15 quid to have a bin emptied. But recycle.
Complain when they don't empty your bin as they should.

How come social services have your number???

If I have to fill in an official form which demands a number I make sure there is one digit wrong so I dont get calls from busybodies. I would also be looking at a way to pay the snitch back. But then I am vindictive like that.

They probably wouldn’t know where it came from true, but my council would see there is one to many bins for the amount of houses, and probably not empty one. And as most people seem to have their numbers on the bin, the one not getting emptied would be the one that has a duplicate number

The OP has already said a couple of times that she doesn't drive and has no access to a vehicle.

Sorry all of this has happened to you, OP, and sorry there are so many sanctimonious and patronising people responding on your thread.

As long as your children are properly cared for and the issue is just the unslightly rubbish (which is beyond your control to a large extent) SS will close their inquiry. They might be able to help you get an extra bin.

YYY to all of this.

Below your post, or above if you read it that way up.

I was thinking the same - our rubbish bins are collected weekly.

In my area families of 5 can get a larger grey bin for general waste

Use their space to get rid of your backlog of rubbish.

We're a family of four, we recycle everything, including taking soft plastics to the supermarket (they aren't collected by the council) and using our food waste bin etc. We still completely fill our black bin every two weeks. If the council missed one collection we would also have extra bags. The council are being very unreasonable to say they won't collect any extra, I'd make a complaint about that. Don't worry about SS, they'll be far too busy with people that actually need them.

I'll look later.

I 100% get you being annoyed then, I always ask mine if needed

Maybe from the road your house might look a state in general, so people are judging and wondering about the welfare of the children inside. This is perfectly understandable as very often an uncared for house contains uncared for children. Try to keep the rubbish under control, try to recycle more as recycling is unlimited.

@elderlyparentone I store it in a large ziplock bag in my freezer, which I add to. Eventually I decide I need the space, this is before it gets to even melon sized amount as it needs to fit the food waste bin, and put the bag in the food waste bin. Just done it with the turkey bones and a few months worth of odds and ends and chicken thigh bones, quite a few pheasant bones & pheasant feathers - we get gifted being rural, lamb chop bones.(I made soup with the remnants so no meat on the turkey bones anyway), but I can assure you I last put it out in the summer sometime. It goes out the night before frozen, so as it didn't smell before or when frozen it certainly won't smell by 6.30 am when collected even though it has thawed if summer, and being in a bag means I never need wash the bin out.

All veg scraps (other than swede and carrot may go for the horse) are composted. Bread crumbs on the bird table. We don't have much meat and rarely on the bone other than chicken thighs, and our dog eats leftovers (if any), so it really is not a lot, don't have fussy eaters and I freeze portion amounts of what I have cooked eg tonight there's two for tea so we are having 2 portions of lasagne I made last week and froze (when 3/5 portions made were eaten). Tomorrow 3 will have pheasant stew from a few weeks ago. That's my ready meals 😎Easy.

I think the legendary Mumsnet chicken has been supplanted by the Mumsnet pheasant.

Op is talking about a second bin of the same type for her overflow rubbish. She already has a recycling bin. If she randomly bought a duplicate bin, it ain't going together emptied any more than in Wandsworth, Richmond, Kensington et al

The elderly neighbour disl8kes OP!

And maybe the legendary 'cancel the cheque' to be replaced by get a bigger bin/report to the council 🤭🤦‍♀️

Long thread so not sure if it's been addressed, but you can put a lot in your blue bin... most councils actually allow a lot of material in the recycling bin that can't actually be recycled (it gets burned or thrown garbage when its sorted). Probably less than half actually gets recycled.

Why do I mention this? Because for me I have a decent idea what actually is recyclable so for a while there I was only putting that in the blue bin, but then i was running into same problem with too much garbage, so now I just put everything in blue bin that council allows even though I know 70% of it won't actually get recycled.

If you haven't already take a good look at what they actually tell you you can recycle it's probably more than you think. Most items can go in recycling or food waste.

Ours doesn't allow fabric. It doesn't allow anything other than the things they recycle.
It's also not blue!

Yes, different areas of the country will have different sizes and numbers of bin, different rules as to what can be put in the various types of bin provided, different coloured bins and different schedules for how frequently their bins are emptied.

I think the poster meant different types of waste when she said "most councils actually allow a lot of material in the recycling bin" - not fabric.

Well, either way, ours only allows the stuff they can recycle.

Paper/card, glass, firm plastic, tetra packs, tins/aluminium.

But people beating on about what their council allows is irrelevant. That was the point I was trying to make.

I'm aware they're all different, as stupid as that may be!!

@Badwowwow don’t worry, absolutely nothing will happen. I’ve had a malicious “anonymous” report made about me to SS. They were so helpful - they called me, told me not to worry, that they knew it was malicious and warned me that the person who made the report knew X, Y and Z about me and to be wary about whoever it was. They also sent me a copy of the report. From that I figured out who it was and called them and calmly told them if they ever tried anything like that again I would fucking destroy them. SS didn’t contact my dc’s school or take it any further