Litter Sucks!

Carl and I live in this not-so-nice-not-as-trashy-as-they-come neighborhood. Our house is one of the cutest on the block. It is small, but we love it. We've been homeowners for a little over four years. During those four years, the only neighbors we really got to know were the ones of both sides of our house. The house across the street, a cute little blue number, is a rent house. The people that live there currently have only been there for about a year. Before that, I think some college kids rented it. Most of the homes on that side of the street are rent houses that run between $600 and $700 per month. All of the houses on our block, including ours, are small, two to three bedroom, suitable for college kids or small families just starting out. Our neighbors to the left are older than my parents.

My complaint is that the neighbors to our right and the neighbors that rent the house across the street keep trashing our block. First off, the neighbors to the right are decent people with no class whatsoever. We know them by name but choose not to associate with them very often. Their children are 4 and 2, and they practically live outside. Their parents are smoking and beer-drinking folk nearly every time we see them. They continuously have people over for parties, and they do not pick up their trash. As a matter of fact, half of the time we find their trash in our yard. Sometimes, it is even in our back yard. Their curb is currently littered with an empty 12-pack box of Miller, napkins, and plastic cups, amongst a few other bits of trash. The neighbors across the street are African-American and have about 5 kids of various ages at their house all the time. I actually do not know how many children belong to them. I've seen up to ten kids in their yard shooting hoops at one point. Their children are always outside, riding bikes or playing basketball, typically unsupervised. One day, I was driving home after a big rain and witnessed a 12 or so year old playing in the muddy water along the curb. I was horrified but dismissed it quickly as simple child's play. Once again, no parents were in sight. Their curb is completely littered with trash, too.

When I got home, I noticed that there was a lot of trash in my front yard and along my curb. I do not litter, so I knew I did not put it there. I looked around the neighborhood and realized that not only was my yard trashed but the whole block looked trashy. Now, I am not too much of an environmentalist. I do care about the environment, but my concerns are limited to picking up trash and planting trees and that sort of thing. I grabbed a trash bag and started picking up the trash, so I could water my poor, brown lawn. I was so annoyed that my yard was full of litter that I did not put there! If our neighbors do not care about the appearance of their house, fine. I cannot make them and would not try to convince them to attempt to look like decent folk. However, I do care about the appearance of my house. I certainly do not appreciate non-sensical, thoughtless idiots making it look like I can't take care of my property. It angers me! So, Carl called his ex-lawyer dad to see if there was anything we could do about this problem. Joe recommended talking to the people first and asking them to please make sure their trash does not wind up in our yard. If it happens again, then we should file a report with the city to make them aware of the situation. We skipped step one. It would be different if this was a once-in-a-while thing. But, we have this happen on a near-daily basis. We'll see what happens. I seriously doubt the city will take the time to investigate one couple's complaint, but maybe, just maybe they will.