What did they throw in your yard today?

[ohiofarmer 3,265]

 Well, i had a particularly high 'body count' of pieces of trash at yesterday's mowing. 4 coffee cups, 1 aluminum beer can, an ash tray full of butts, and my personal favorite, an Arby's bag complete with at least 25 containers of Arby's sauce. i usually just mow it down, but mowing over a plastic bottle of Mountain Dew with liquid inside might just be urine......

 

 One time, years ago, I was mowing and a cup of ice came at me from behind and narrowly missed my head. i carried a gun for a time after that, but later decided that it would be my luck that even a .22 could over penetrate and hurt someone. Besides that , once the threat is over, i would be breaking the law big time. You get the same thing riding a motorcycle with tailgaters harassing you, but a windshield washer pumping mineral oil backs them off in a hurry. 

 

My 100 yards of side ditch looks like a lawn and it is not easy to mow as Fescue takes power to cut. then these jerks show up and use my place for a garbage can

[Ed Kennell 38,149]

I feel your frustration brother, but don't let it make you do something stupid.  I have a  litterer that uses my road.  They must work second shift and on their way home stop for their 1AM dinner at the Mac. about 5 mile from my house.    Without fail, they finish their dinner and throw out the bag of trash near my house.   I have been tempted to try to catch them in the act and make a citizens arrest, but Mrs. K informed me she was not going to visit me in prison.  So I just pick up the scum bags trash every day and feel good that I left this earth cleaner than I found it.

[Jerry77 1,218]

Yeah, I get a lot of stuff too..makes me mad but what are you going to do?  This summer, I came across a vodka bottle in my ditch and it was full of liquid..so I emptied out before throwing it in the trash...must have been vodka because the spot where I dumped it is still bare ground - who knew that alcohol would completely kill the ground...?  not me..

[stevasaurus 22,721]

Some people are just plain slobs.  I live on a busy street and it is nothing to pick up beer cans, bottles, fast food bags, etc.  Every once in a while, I find a tool that bounced of the back of a truck...1/2 ratchet drive, Craftsman screw driver, etc.  Once, I asked my kids to mow the lawn, they both had a good reason to get out of it...so good old Dad went out and mowed it...found a $5 spot crumpled in the grass.  Never had a problem with the kids not mowing the lawn again.  That was before horses.    It's also nothing to find some change in the gutter.  it's the broken glass that makes me mad. 

[clueless 2,987]

Few years back I was driving down my road, a nice red CJ with a bikini top is coming the other way. Kid driving throws a big fast food bag in the ditch, I turn around and follow him, he pulls in the drive way of a very nice home at the golf course down the road. I go back and pick up the mess and put it back in the bag and drive back to his place and dump it in his front seat. It"s good to be an old fart some times .   

[SylvanLakeWH 25,539]

All true comments...sadly...

 

I pick up trash at church a couple times a week along the adjacent 3 roads...It is unbelievable what people throw out (usual stuff plus some other items that I won't mention)...Use a home depot bucket and a pincher / grabber doohickey so I don't have to touch the stuff...Oddly, I get a sense of pride when neighbors thank me and I see them taking a bit better care of their property as well...I guess there's some good out of other folks nonsense...

Edited September 27, 2017 by SylvanLakeWH

[KC9KAS 4,741]

I feel your pain.

Years ago I was finding a certain brand of empty vodka bottles in my yard on a regular basis.

I live in a small town and you know who is cheating on their spouse and who they are cheating with, as well as who is an AA drop-out.

Well a fellow living down the street was working a 3rd shift and was drinking the vodka on the way home and it was just convenient to throw the empty  out in my yard just 100 yards from his home.

One day while I was outside in the back yard, he came by and threw out the empty. I picked it up and promptly walked to his house.

I asked for him by name and when he came to the door I confronted him and told him what my actions would be if I found 1 more empty vodka bottle in my yard.

He took me serious and never threw out another one in my yard!

[953 nut 55,195]

6 hours ago, clueless said:

good to be an old fart some times

My dad did something like Chris years ago. There were always beer cans in the ditch near the house, same brand all the time. A couple of times he spotted the car they were being tossed from and then one fateful day he was driving behind the car in question and followed it home. He took the bag of cans from the barn and dumped them on the fellow's door step and rang the door bell, no one came to the door and the beer can tossing mysteriously stopped.

Of course few people carried fire arms then and the mentally unstable were institutionalized, not too sure I would do that today!    

[squonk 41,073]

I live along a state highway. I get fast food bags, Red Bull & beer cans. Car parts, oil bottles, tarp straps, apple cores, love notes, garbage cans, bike tires ect.. We did have a walk behind tiller land in the road but the guy stopped.  We had a drunk in a stolen car drive through our bushes and saw off a fire hydrant and a tire wheel assembly fly off an 18 wheeler and hit the front porch. 

Edited September 27, 2017 by squonk

[AMC RULES 37,130]

 OK...OK...you win.  

[Ed Kennell 38,149]

Any chance of you sharing the love notes Mike ?

[elcamino/wheelhorse 9,297]

@squonk You need to move, you might get killed doing yard work.

[squonk 41,073]

That truck tire hit the porch right where I had put a double floor joist in. If it had been about a foot to the left it would have gone up the steps and gone through a beveled glass door! 

[Sarge 3,463]

I've had a problem with the local kids around here for years - it only takes a trip to the local bar and the gas station to find out who bought the beer the night before , then I talk to their parents . The garbage stops for a time before the next genius does it and the process repeats . I've gotten to know a lot of people around here that way - most are pretty polite and some will try to defend their kids thinking they wouldn't do such a thing - then I give them their own plate number and ask if they rather I talk to the local Sheriff...? I've had to walk away more than once when the kid is confronted by the parent - and the butt kicking ensues...lol .

 

Working Construction the amount of crap that is thrown along our highways is staggering - you'd think the littering fines would help but they don't seem to have any effect at all . What really bothers me is some of this stuff is poisonous and downright dangerous - makes you wonder how anyone can drive a vehicle and lose something like that so easily . The amount of vehicle parts , some being quite critical to the driver's safety show up along the roads as well - brake parts in the ditch are not a good thing . I like one solution a co-worker had for a guy that lived down the road dumping his trash bags along his corn fields - he showed the guy bills with his name on them and told him next time he gives the trash to the Police - it never happened again . In the course of one week in the summer I can fill our recycling bin with what is thrown on this property - it's disgusting .

Sarge

[formariz 11,987]

My problem was with people from a nearby condo development walking their dogs and not picking up after them on the front lawn. Not a very pleasant thing to get it plastered on the tractor wheels or worse to get it thrown by the blades. Never really caught anyone doing it so i never had any confrontation with anyone.

Fought with town for about one year and finally they put the proper sign next to sidewalk .

 

Now the stuff really hit the fan .First day of the sign and there is one pile of crap right under the sign. Then for the next couple of days someone actually picks it up places in a plastic bag and throws it right in the center of driveway.

Now as per my wife's words I turn into " a deranged lunatic" and call the cops when there is another bag there. Guy comes and is trying to calm me down and just to call right away when i find who did it. So I proceed to tell him in no uncertain terms that it is from the development and in no way i am going to call and that it is just going to be a very bad day for me if i see it happening.

Well i guess that i really made an impression because a few minutes after he left I heard him in the development though the cars loudspeaker announcing that it is illegal to not pick up after your dog and that it is not only illegal but dangerous to throw it intentionally in someone's property.  Later that day towards evening i heard him again saying exactly the same thing .

Not only did that action fix the problem immediately but also from that day on dog walking traffic was basically reduced by more than half.

 

I guess that it pays off to occasionally lose you mind .

Edited September 28, 2017 by formariz

[953 nut 55,195]

2 hours ago, formariz said:

guess that it pays off to occasionally lose you mind

[AMC RULES 37,130]

I just built the wall. 

Keeps everything out.   

 

[ohiofarmer 3,265]

12 hours ago, formariz said:

My problem was with people from a nearby condo development walking their dogs and not picking up after them on the front lawn. Not a very pleasant thing to get it plastered on the tractor wheels or worse to get it thrown by the blades. Never really caught anyone doing it so i never had any confrontation with anyone.

Fought with town for about one year and finally they put the proper sign next to sidewalk .

 

Now the stuff really hit the fan .First day of the sign and there is one pile of crap right under the sign. Then for the next couple of days someone actually picks it up places in a plastic bag and throws it right in the center of driveway.

Now as per my wife's words I turn into " a deranged lunatic" and call the cops when there is another bag there. Guy comes and is trying to calm me down and just to call right away when i find who did it. So I proceed to tell him in no uncertain terms that it is from the development and in no way i am going to call and that it is just going to be a very bad day for me if i see it happening.

Well i guess that i really made an impression because a few minutes after he left I heard him in the development though the cars loudspeaker announcing that it is illegal to not pick up after your dog and that it is not only illegal but dangerous to throw it intentionally in someone's property.  Later that day towards evening i heard him again saying exactly the same thing .

Not only did that action fix the problem immediately but also from that day on dog walking traffic was basically reduced by more than half.

 

I guess that it pays off to occasionally lose you mind .

 

 Losing your mind to cops has its benefits--sometimes

 

 We had a trespasser --a kid with a 4 wheeler crossing through cropland to get to his sister's house. I followed the tracks back to his house and called the Sheriff. I told the deputy that i had identified the offending 4 wheeler and the residence of the kid in question. it was the same kid [and parents] I had warned 5 years earlier about the same thing.

 

 i also interviewed the neighbors and it turns out these kids were terrorizing the neighborhood with what was described as massive explosions that were linked to an abandoned railroad track that was their own personal road to mayhem

 

 Anyway, i had the deputy ask me if the kid had a helmet on and i said "yes' Deputy said that as long as he had a helmet and I did not see his face, nothing could be done. i then said that I knew about the explosions and why all the evidence pointed to these guys. I painted an example scenario of using the railroad track with a snowmobile to rob a bank down that same railroad track and then the deputies not following that track after the robbery because the rider kept his helmet on. Told the deputy that he really had made my day because in this county the Magic Helmet Rule  meant that I could make good use of my face mask .......and Ghillie suit.

 

 Long story short, the deputy actually did his job and interviewed the suspect and got a confession. Told me it was going to juvy court and i called the court and asked for restitution and  got a nice check for my corn crop that was damaged. His dad called and left a tirade of a message on my answering machine after having to pay the restitution.A few months I saw 'father of the year' before he saw me at a local tire shop, grabbed a tire iron off the wall, and observed that it is pretty easy to talk tough over the phone, but that i was ready to continue discussing his phone message outside. I then accepted his apology.

Spoiler

 

 

 About a year later, the same kid rode a snowmobile into a pile of railroad ties and became a vegetable who spoke about a 5 words vocabulary before his death 5 years later. I often wonder if his parents ever questioned how discipline affects behavior?

[Ken B 3,164]

I live in a sleepy, quiet, private neighborhood, most neighbors I know by name. For yrs. I never had a problem and then I began to have two... First one, someone's dog was all of a sudden pooping in my front yard on a daily basis. From the evidence left behind it appeared to be a large dog being fed table scraps or canned dog food. Not a pretty site to say the least. I finally snagged the dog and its owner and confronted him at his house a few minutes after the crime. New guy to the neighbor hood. He lied and said he doesn't walk his dog up the road near my house. I told him if he wanted he could come up to my house and watch the video, On the video you could see him watching his dog do it and I told him so. At first he refused to come clean it up, but after I reminded him that payback is a ****** he did clean that mess up. Second problem I began to have was even worse. Someone was throwing used condoms in my side yard. I was finding them every Saturday morning. I relocated one of my video cameras and sat watching the monitor on Friday night. To my surprise a car pulls to the side of the road at 11 pm and shut its lights off. I waited about 15 minutes and then went outside, snuck around the back of the car and walked up to the drivers door. I recognized the car, it belonged to a neighbor that lived at the end of my street. It wasn't the guy who lived at the end of the street that was inside, it was his grandson and apparently the kids girl friend. I could tell they had just "wrapped things up" When I was looking thru the car talking to the kid who was in the passenger seat I saw a used condom dangling from my fence which runs along my side yard. I told the kid there will be no more parking along side my yard, he nervously replies, yes sir no problem. I then pointed to the 'left over' dangling from my fence and told him to take care of that and that I really didn't appreciate all the others he left behind. He then replies oh, that's not mine. I say's ok, lets go wake up grandpa and we can explain to him what's going on here and I began walking up the road. He then yells no please don't do that! I tell him clean it up, yes sir is the reply. Now, I know his grandfather , but he didn't know that. His grandfather is a real good guy, a real big guy to and he don't put up with nonsense... That kid was lucky grandpa didn't have to get out of bed that night... No more problems.....

Edited September 29, 2017 by Ken B

[Ed Kennell 38,149]

OK, here's my experience with the criminal justice system.

Many years ago, more than I care to remember, I was called to jury duty on an assault and robbery case.

The female victim was assaulted and robbed of her wallet. by a male on a city street.  A suspect fitting the description was spotted several blocks away and was detained while the victim was brought to the victim and she made a positive ID.

 

During the trial, the defense was..

The suspect was not wearing a black puffy vest as the victim testified,  it was a gray charcoal  color.

There was no witnesses,  it was his word vs her word.

It was impossible for the defendant to get from the crime scene to the point he was apprehended based on the timing of the victims 911 call and the police call that they had a suspect.

 

The jury only had an hour and could not make a decision that day, but it was clear the female jury foreman was pressing for a quick acquittal and had a 8-3 vote.

I was one of the 3 that voted guilty.

I live in the country, but worked in the city near where this crime took place, so that evening I got a city map, marked the to spots in question and walked briskly from the crime scene to the arrest site.   It took me 47 seconds less than the phone calls showed.

Next day as the jury convened, I caused a major uproar when I presented my map and stop watch findings to the jury.  The foreman screamed mistrial, you can't present evidence. and made the statement

" you don't have to live in the city, but I do".        

I am pleased to report...he was convicted.       Speak up, do the right thing and the system may just work.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2017 by Ed Kennell

[Stormin 9,981]

 And I thought only England suffered from what we call litter louts, irresponsible dog owners and fly tipping.

[wallfish 16,994]

We had the same problem with people walking their dogs and letting them crap in our yard. My grandchildren and the neighborhood kids play out there! Now I keep a close eye whenever I see people with their dogs. So far I took MY dogs 3 different times in the car right to their house and walked them in their front yard. When they came out asking what was going on, I explained that this is where I'm letting my dogs crap just like you do to me. That's 3 less people who walk their dogs anywhere near our front yard!

Edited October 1, 2017 by wallfish

[squonk 41,073]

Today it was 2 cigarette packages from the injun plantation and a squashed Wally World water bottle. 

[tunahead72 2,412]

WOW!

I thought I had something to add to this thread, but you guys have much better stories than I do.

Carry on! 

 

[ohiofarmer 3,265]

On 9/27/2017 at 7:49 PM, squonk said:

I live along a state highway. I get fast food bags, Red Bull & beer cans. Car parts, oil bottles, tarp straps, apple cores, love notes, garbage cans, bike tires ect.. We did have a walk behind tiller land in the road but the guy stopped.  We had a drunk in a stolen car drive through our bushes and saw off a fire hydrant and a tire wheel assembly fly off an 18 wheeler and hit the front porch. 

  My buddy and I were on our way to a hunt and a semi tire and wheel crossed the median ditch and went airborne, hitting the road right in front of us and went airborne again--right over the top of the truck. So if we were a few feet farther down the road, the combined speed of our truck and that tire would have been a disaster.

 

 Another time years ago when i did not own a cell phone I was home on Sunday and a large dump truck flipped over in my front yard. Perfectly straight road and the driver was trying to get his spit cup off the floor and lost his entire load of dirt. Glad he flipped it, because he was heading right for the house, and if the truck stayed sunny side up, i probably would have been killed watching the game. i ran out of the house and this huge cloud of dust enveloped me.

I demanded that he give me his phone because fuel was dripping directly on my power panel that I had installed in the yard. [[yes, the phone line also went through the conduit on the power panel, so I had no phone service] He said no, i am talking to my boss.

 

 Not gonna say what I told him next,  but i was calling 911 seconds later on his cell. No power, no phone a load of dirt in my yard and a diesel spill.  A happy camper i was not.

Edited October 3, 2017 by ohiofarmer