A couple of months ago I wrote an entry in which I celebrated the joy of complaining. Do you remember that? A council worker in Stafford knocked on our door and demanded that we do something about piles of garbage behind our house. In response I wrote an email to the council. I've just re-read it in my sent folder and thought it might be a nice read for third-parties like your selves. Enjoy.
Hello!
I am one of five students living at 90 Corporation Street. My room-mates and I moved in here around last September and, having recently graduated, expect to move out within the next few weeks.
Today a man from the council knocked on our door and told us that his department had received complaints from neighbours of ours who were filing about a build-up of rubbish behind the back of our garden. The man from the council (Dave something or other) told us that this was fly-tipping and asked if we were responsible. I told him no, because we weren't.
He then asked "If I were to go through the rubbish, would I find anything linking it to you?" Again, I said no, because it's not our rubbish. He asked if we would be happy with perhaps putting the rubbish in our wheelie bins. Before I could ask "is that safe?" he read my mind and reassured me "I've had a cursory look and there are no needles." He even went further and added "There's a spade out there you can use to shovel it in to your bins." Just what I need.
My room-mate and I went out back to look at the damage, expecting to see a few torn bin bags, some cardboard that would fit in to our recycling bin etc. The kinds of things that we could reasonably clean up and put in to our bins. But that wasn't what we found.
There was a disused pool table, shelves, a shoe, some torn bags, one of those metallic poles used to air and dry clothes in a garden and other assorted trash. How we were supposed to put any of this in our bins was beyond me. Even with the spade, it is still a geometric impossibility.
Now, according to direct.gov.uk, I am warned not to a) touch the waste because obviously it could contain needles, syringes, toxic mould, asbestos, glass etc. nor am I b) to disturb the waste because it would make it more difficult in future for people to investigate where it came from.
So instead of trying to work out how I am supposed to shovel some stranger's pool-table in to my small wheelie-bin, I wanted to alert the council--I am, after all, reasonably assured that cleaning up fly-tipping is the council's job and not the person who happens to live next door to it--and also highlight the way the council worker who visited us tried to imply that it was our responsibility and that, despite the frightening dangers of plunging our hands in to who-knows-what mess, we should remove it.
Thank you for your consideration on this matter.
Yours faithfully, Phil.
