I've been bombarded with soda cans!

[Blondie]

A family across the street from me recycles their soda cans, which is a good thing, but here's the problem.

It was extremely windy here all day yesterday and last night. They put their cans out before they go to bed in a designated recycle bin and they're picked every Saturday morning.

Last night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I could hear these tin cans rolling across the street in the wind!

I look out my window this morning and I can count exactly 22 cans at the bottom of my driveway and across my lawn!

I asked my son to just go grab their recycle bin and pick up the cans and place the bin back where they had it.

This isn't the first time this has happened, but this is the first time there were this many cans!

We really don't know them well enough (they hardly ever leave the house) and I don't feel comfortable knocking on their door telling them to come get their damned cans!

What would you do?

 

[Serena]

Knock on their door and when they answer smile and say that "your yard was decorated with their cans overnight. Could they do something about it."
They will probably be a little embarrassed, but then you laugh and say something about the wind was pretty strong last night.

Or that's what would work for me.

 

[zurgswife]

I'd probably pick up the cans...

 

[Blondie]

Like I said these people rarely come out of their house except to go to and from work! I doubt they'd come and get them!

I'll just have one of my boys pick them up. They said they wanted to dump them on their lawn! I told them no, don't do that!!!!!

They'll think the recycle guy didn't pick up their cans this morning because they're getting most of them back!

What I want to know is, why doesn't the wind blow them onto their own property!

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

I'd pick them up with their container and politely deliver them back to the spot where it's kept until recycling day, if it's a visible area. I would probably ring their bell and advise them of the situation after returning the bin.

 

[Jeanny]

I would have just picked them up and put them back in the bin also.... They're not worth getting your blood pressure up over... and if your boys just dumped them back on their lawn, that's when the neighbors would have been looking out of the window!!!

I NEVER put my recycling out when it's windy, it's just common sense!

 

[GIOny]

If you keep picking up their cans and returning them to the bins on their property they will never know there is a problem and they will keep doing it through no fault of their own. You have to make them aware of the situation (in a polite way). I think a good solution would to have them put the cans out in the morning. In NY we get back 5 cents for every beer and soda can, I know it doesn't sound like much but if you start accumulating them you would be surprised at how much you get back sometimes, if they take back cans in your state and your sons want to make a little extra money, I'm sure your neighbors would probally give you the cans before they even had a chance to end up out in the street!! Good Luck and let us know the outcome

 

[shortbun]

I'd have picked them up, just like you did.

 

[mudnuri]

I dont think I would do anything other than pick them up and put them back in the container.

I wonder- where the sense of a neighborhood went? In the area where I live, we watch out for one anothers children, we mow eachothers lawn in the summer, or snowblow/shovel driveways and walkways for others in the winter. It's never asked its just done. My neighbor to the right, is a single lady- about 45, who works 75-80 hours per week, our lawns here grow incredibly well, and need to be mowed every 5 days or so...she has a push mower, I have a tractor with a 64" mower deck..when I'm done with my lawn, I continue to hers. Every now and then she'll bring over DD's a special gift- a new hoola hoop, jump rope, side walk chaulk etc..as a "thank you"...not asked for, not requested, but appreciated. as the same way with me mowing the lawn- she appreciates it, and I do it out of kindness.

I'm a bit taken aback by your boys comment about dumping them on the lawn...if I had told my DD's to go get them (which I probably would have just done myself)...DD's would have asked me "where should I put the container?"...

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I/we would have just done it, no questions asked, no clarification/explanation needed. It's just what we would have done.

Brandy

 

[Blondie]

Well, I wished I lived in your neighborhood!

It's just not like that here. People don't watch out for each other's kids, houses, cars or soda cans for that matter. It is sad, but that's the way it is in many neighborhoods today.

My 14 y.o. went out and picked them all up, placed them back into the container they came out of, and put it back where it was originally placed, at the end of their driveway.

If it happens again, I'm knocking on their door to let them know I don't appreciate continually picking up their cans. I don't mind a can or two, but 22? That's ridiculous.

 

[Cruisin]

mudnuri:
I just wanted you to know that you are not the only one who lives in a neighbourhood like yours.
We live in a fairly close knit neighbourhood. If I saw one of my neighbours children walking down the street quite a distance from home, like to or from school, I would stop and offer them a ride.
We have street parties, complete with fireworks in the spring. A couple years ago a neighbour had a party for her husbands birthday. They had a band, put on a dinner and we all danced out in the circle on the street, adults and children all together
It has been a great neighbourhood to raise our kids in.

Blondie: Do you live in a larger city? Do you think the size of the town/city makes a difference in the friendliness of it's neighbourhoods. We live in a city of approx 43,000.

 

[nativetxn]

Gee, here in Michigan those soda cans are worth 10 cents each.

Good luck with this

 

[disykat]

When it's the wind, I pick them up. We had a windy trash day last week here too and I spent about 15 minutes cleaning up our part of the neighborhood.

What made me mad though was that about an hour after I'd finished, the teenagers next door came home and there was a soda cup sitting in the middle of the road. These people literally throw their trash down wherever it strikes them. Yesterday I went to our mailbox - located right by the neighbors- and there was a little tube, a used tampon dispenser, sitting underneath our mailbox. I know it didn't fly out of their trash since I had already cleaned up that mess a few days back!

I'd count yourself lucky it's only a trash day problem!

 

[Poohbear123]

As when I do, the neighborhood trash picker, picks ALL the cans and bottles out, and leaves a big mess, so I don't recycle for that reason.