My neighbour despises me after I broke the sacred bin day rule without knowing – they even charged at me
A MAN was left mortified after realising he committed a bin crime leaving his neighbour furious.
Putting the bin out can be a sensitive subject for neighbours - but he had no idea how serious the issue was.
Taking to social media, he explained that he'd recently moved and was worried he had "accidentally started a bin war" with his new neighbours.
The man had moved to Western Sydney, but his blunder meant he didn't get the warm welcome form his neighbours that he hoped for.
He added: "I've been spoilt using communal bins most of my life living in apartments and now I'm learning to navigate this new world with three different coloured bins that go out on different nights on alternating weeks in different spots on the street.
"I thought I was doing okay until tonight. It's red-lid bin night and all my bins are overflowing from the holidays. I had a large cardboard box and a small bag of rubbish that wouldn't fit in my bins, so when I saw my neighbours had their bins out and a few of them were almost empty I thought it made sense to use them.
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"So I broke down the cardboard box, folded it up and put it in one of the almost empty bins and I tied up my small bag of rubbish and placed it in another almost empty bin."
But his idea caused him more grief than he could imagine as his neighbour soon came charging at him telling him he couldn't use her bin.
He continued: "I apologised and explained I thought it would be alright as her bin was almost empty. She tells me it's not okay and I should be putting cardboard in the yellow recycling bins which don't get emptied until next week.
"I agreed I should be leaving cardboard for recycling week and I asked if I could leave the small bag of rubbish in her bin. She said no and started rambling about council rates and I joked she's not getting her money's worth if she only uses a quarter of her bin but it didn't lighten the mood and now she is furious with me."
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The man took to Reddit to ask why it was such a big deal - especially when the bin was nowhere near full.
He ended the post by writing: "She's now sitting at her front window guarding her bin so I'm getting the feeling I've really broken some sacred rule of suburbia bin law."
He went on to ask if his neighbour was overreacting or if he had really done something wrong.
People were quick to share their thoughts on the post and offer their advice on understanding the intricate rules of bin day.
One wrote: "The rules are:
- Never ever overflow a neighbour bin. The bin needs to close WELL after the adventure
- Never put too early. It needs to be really close to truck time!
- Don't put the wrong type/use the wrong bin. Don't put recycling in red. Don't put food in red (if your council has food recycling)
- Don't get caught. As others said, the cover of darkness is great. You got caught, so don't try again with that neighbour. Even better if you can plead to have mistakenly put it there (as in, your bin is side by side with other bins)
- Never, never put anything in a bin after the truck came and cleaned it. That's completely unacceptable."
A second commented: "Bonus tip: if you don't have the opportunity to get to know your neighbours, if you happen to be the first one home after the truck has been, take your neighbour's bin in once in a while. People are much less likely to give a s**t about trivial things (like you putting some overflow in their bins) with a little kindness shown here and there."
"You outed yourself as a non-recycler, it's gonna take years of gifted baked Christmas goods to recover from this faux pas," joked a third.
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"Credit for flattening your cardboard box so there is some coming back from it."
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