Several years ago, I noticed that sometimes someone takes bottles from our recycling bin. I have seen the lid of everyone's recycling bin open in the morning, or I have noticed missing bottles from our bin, but I also saw someone with bicycle looking into people's recycling bins. I only noticed these things on the day of the recycling collection as everyone leaves the bins at the curve.
Some of the bottles, like beer and liquor bottles could be brought to the beer store and they give you between 5 cents to 15 cents a bottle. If you have a lot of bottles, you could make a few dollars or more. First I thought that maybe street people go through and take bottles for money, and I didn't see too much harm in it. However things got escalated.
One day, I had lots of bottles for recycling. They didn't fit into the bin, so I left them in clear plastic bag as we were supposed to do on the day of the recycling collection. A few hours after I left the plastic bag, I went out and noticed that the bag looks so much smaller than as I left. When I got closer, I saw that someone left holes in the bag and took all the liquor bottles. I was quite upset with this. They could just open the top and take the bottles and close it up, but instead, they made holes, not one but several to get bottles from the plastic bag. If collection comes now, they won't take my bag because things are falling from it, so I had to bring a new bag to put them in. Since that time, I decided to put bottles at the bottom of the bin, and put all the paper recycling on top, so these people can't see and can't take the bottles.
Recently, I decided to keep the bottles for myself and bring them to the beer store myself. So I can get back my money instead of just putting in the recycling bin for free. So I have no more bottles for these people to take. Now they got more and more aggressive with their methods of collecting bottles.
A few times, I saw some stranger in the back of the house. Our neighbors noticed that the strangers are looking into people's garbage bins, not on the day of the recycling, but during the week when the bins are stored at private yard. It is a bit alarming. Strangers going through people's back yard where they aren't supposed to enter. Then, I noticed some odd things last week.
The bins are quite large and heavy. Unless there's a very strong wind, this thing doesn't fall easily. However I noticed that the bin fell on the ground and the lid was open one day when there was no strong wind. First, I thought that maybe some animals knocked down the bin, or maybe some strong wind that I didn't notice. Then this morning at around 6:30 a.m., when there was no wind, still dark outside, I heard that the garbage or recycling bin fell. I was in the kitchen at the time and I know this distinct loud noise of the bin falling. Today is the day before the recycling day. As it gets brighter, I look out. Yes, the recycling bin is on the ground with lid open. So now these people are not just looking into the bin, but make it fall so that they can make sure to spot the bottles at the bottom of the bin.
What would they do next? Entering people's garage or house to look for the bottles? It is so scary but I'm not sure where to report this. Does the police look into this? Probably not.
Image by plagal on flickr
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