Bin theft!

I got home (late) tonight to find that the bin I’d left on the street to be emptied was nowhere to be seen. “Oho”, thinks I, “Perhaps some kind neighbour has taken it round the back for me.” But no, it’s not in its place, it’s not in next door’s driveway, nor the driveway across the street. Indeed, it’s nowhere to be seen.

“Bugger! Who steals a bin!?” is pretty much what I’m thinking now. And then I remember. Last summer, my brown bin magically filled itself with garden waste and moved from behind my shed at the top of the garden to next to the back door of a flat two doors down from mine. Turns out the new tenant was as confused as I was and we put it down to the gardener his landlady employed.

“I wonder”, thinks I. Sure enough, in the dark corner at the back of number (mine minus 6 and a floor below) sits my bin. I know it’s my bin because it has my flat number painted in large white letters on the front. It was also full of rubbish including what seemed to be a car wheel and a box full of some kind of metal work. I know this because I took it all out and left it there before restoring my bin to its normal position.

It begs the question though; who steals a bin? Not only that but who steals a bin which has the owner’s number on it then fills it with rubbish and presumably thinks the rightful owner will just wait a fortnight until it’s emptied and retrieve it then? The flat is now “To Let” so I can only presume it was the landlady or an underling.

Perhaps they think they live in the same flat number as I do? Is that flat advertised as being my number but would be tenants flock to the door with “To Let” outside it? Does some of the mail that I send back “Addressee unknown” belong to people a few doors down who are wondering where their pension statements have got to?

Banal, but curious.