Neighbor's Trash
A couple years ago a new neighbor purchased the brownstone next door to mine, and since then, at least 80 percent of the time, the trash from that house gets placed in front of MY brownstone on the nights when we put out trash and/or recycling on our block. I see the neighbor tries to…
A couple years ago a new neighbor purchased the brownstone next door to mine, and since then, at least 80 percent of the time, the trash from that house gets placed in front of MY brownstone on the nights when we put out trash and/or recycling on our block. I see the neighbor tries to put it where there is a break between cars (to make it easier for the sanitation workers), and they do have a large tree in front of their property (which takes up some space). There is still room in front of his own house though, and I don’t see why the tree entitles him to put his trash in front of my place. We have in the past been ticketed for recycling issues that were not our fault (when presumably some person walking by put a newspaper and empty coffee cup in one of our bins). I have always been vigilant to keep my recycling well sorted and in SEALED bags, and have kept lids on our trash bins. The neighbor is more careless and often piles improperly sorted recyclables in front of my house too. What is the most diplomatic way to express to this neighbor that his trash belongs in front of HIS OWN brownstone? Is this a common problem in brownstone Brooklyn?
The DSNY guys will get to the garbage if it’s next to a car. Don’t allow your neighbor’s lax recycling to become your problem.
I have a similar problem with neighbors who place their garbage in front of my house. I simply go out and place the garbage in front of their house, or sometimes next to their garden where their basement steps are.
Other neighbors keep their recycling in overflowing bins that allow for bottles to be blown all over the place, those find their way to the bottom of said neighbor’s basement stairs.
P.S. I was addressing those above who said they put their garbage on the property line, not addressing the OP in my most recent post.
Sanitation is not going to refuse or be bothered by your trash if there’s a parked car there. That’s ridiculous. They have to service streets with more parked cars than yours all day. We never pay attention to whether there is a car in front of our house or not. We put our garbage in the same place each time between the tree pit and our flower barrel directly in front of our house. I would never put our garbage in front of a neighbor’s house or on the border. We have received violations before at our old coop building so we know for certain the city does give those out. It’s not theoretical. Here at our house, the only time our neighbors put their garbage in front of our house was when their loser handyman put illegal garbage out (huge chunks of cement in bags) and fully knew it wasn’t legal so he put it in front of our house. The sanitation worker was about to issue a violation to us when we caught it. Sometimes when a neighbor is putting garbage in front of another house it may be for a self-serving reason.
In response to crazypants, part of the problem was with snow. By choosing the spot in front of our property that made his trash easy to collect for sanitation department, he made it very tough for us to carry suitcases and sleeping kids, etc. into the house when we got home. We had to detour around his trash to get into our house. My main concern though is with the possibility of a mess (quite often when trash is collected little bits of it are left behind). He had no way of knowing we would be back in time to pick up after any potential mess left behind, or caused by toppling of his bins, or anything else like that. I do plan to talk to him about it.
I want to know why you’ve been living next to this person for a couple of years and don’t know him well enough to approach him on the subject. He’s your NEIGHBOR! Be neighborly and talk to the mofo!
OP – doesn’t the trash go on the curb of the sidewalk rather than right outside your gate or stoop?
For a second there I thought I was the jerk neighbor, because for whatever reason 95% of the time theres a parked car in front of my house and we also have the large tree and tree pit in front. So I usually put all of our trash closer to our neighbor’s property line and in front of the break in parked cars to make the Sanit guys job easier. But always at the curb, and I never cross over to their side and my garbage is always properly sorted.
Right outside the gate seems weird to me, unless you have really skinny sidewalks – and even then, why not the curb?
New neighbors at first put their (considerable) trash and recycling on my side of the property line, far from their front door (there’s a tree pit). I consistently moved it all back to where it belonged, on the other side of the tree. Eventually, after a few months ALL of the condo members who were apparently alternating taking out the trash, got the message. Now stuff is piled on my side only when there’s a ton of cardboard recycling or stuff that would impede sidewalk traffic otherwise.
We never had to say a thing.
As a matter of policy it’s best to approach these things in a friendly way at first even if it’s possible the neighbor is knowingly in the wrong. I can imagine that some of the things I do with my trash (just bags on the sidewalk without cans, sometimes large items, occasionally tied up cardboard gets loose) might unreasonably irritate my neighbors and I’d hope they’d mention it to me or leave a note before the pitchforks came out.
Hank, responsibility and liability do not equate to ownership when it come to NYC sidewalks. All the problems without any of the benefits…
I don’t get the courtesy argument. My neighbor to the left puts their trash at the bottom right side of their stoop. I usually put my trash next to their trash on or about our shared property line. I do this because in my mind, I’m being courteous to the trash guy. I always looked at it like i’m doing him a favor by being able to pick up 2 sets of trash at once.
So despite my good intentions of helping out the sanitation guy, i may have been pissing off my neighbor by violating the sanctity of his space. I guess you cant win for trying.