Scavengers in Suburbia

Our local council has designated that this week residents will be able to leave "hard rubbish" in front of their houses for collection. I cleared out some stuff that I wanted to get rid of and placed them as requested on the kerbside on Sunday evening.

By Monday afternoon, several scavengers had obviously pulled up in their cars and sifted through my pile of rubbish for anything they might find useful. I don't have a problem with that - as they say, one person's trash is another's treasure. But it would be nice if they left the pile as neat as they found it. So I was not happy to see an empty box left almost blocking the footpath, and other bits of rubbish flung around the place. This meant I had to go out last night and tidy up the pile again, otherwise I might get a visit from an angry council rep.

Maybe I'm being to harsh. The scavengers have already reduced my pile by almost half! I may need to put more out just to make my paltry pile look more impressive.

There's no firm time when the council's contractors will actually come to collect the rubbish. At the current rate, there may not be much left for them to pick up! I suspect the council deliberately holds back from collecting the hard rubbish long enough to allow scavengers to pick off most of the stuff, leaving them with less to collect.