I can't afford to fight the Bin Wars.
I've been living in the north end for a year now, in a terrace with a back alley where we have to leave our bins out for collection. We painted, scratch and blowtorch our house number and road on every surface of our bins, but this doesn't deter scallies from nicking it.
We're currently on our SEVENTH purple bin in a year. At £20 a pop, that's £140 out of pocket so far. Plus the five times a bin has been stolen but we've managed to reclaim it next collection day, or just found it randomly left in the alley, full of takeaway boxes, dead mice and loose dog shit.
On average throughout the last year, our purple bin has been stolen once a month. Every other time we put it out, someone helps themselves to it. A 50% chance our property gets taken. But the council still demands we use this system, and requires us to pay for a replacement.
I've been wondering for a year what can be done about it, but there's nothing. I literally can't afford to keep subsidising petty theft, and I have no other means to dispose of waste. So I'm just going to do what half the street does and toss my rubbish out into the alley. The plagues of rats are happy at least.
Posted Mar 19, 2021, 3:10 AM UTC · edited
We have a house down the road from us which is clearly a large HMO (house of multiple occupancy) for students and low income workers etc, they always have TONS of rubbish and for some reason every bin day they think it's fair game to wander down the road taking as many bins as they can find back to their place. Fortunately it's not a private yard out front so when I can't find my bins I just wander down there, find mine and get it back. Problematically they seem to be organised enough to fill neighbours bins before their own, so if I don't want shite blowing all over my street I have to empty mine into one of theirs. This gets on my nerves so I've taken to posting it through the letterbox.
I don't have much of a solution for you, all I'd say is maybe paint the handle bit with some of that really horrid oily sticky anti-climb paint you put on the top of fences and walls. The black shit which sticks on for days. Smear it all over the handle part. When you go out to get your bin back you can wear surgical gloves but the unthinking scally is either going to leave it alone or at least end up covered in black shite. It's not about making your bin steal-proof, it's just about making it less desirable than anyone else's.