Me: “Would you mind not parking in front of my trash and recycling bins? They won’t get emptied if they’re blocked.”
Lexus SUV-driving asshole: “Move your bins to your driveway.”
Me: “I don’t have a driveway.”
Lexus SUV-driving asshole: “Not my problem.”
The Russians know how to deal with double parkers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXRT-Mixnho
If you were the vindictive type, you could peel the registration stickers off the car, and/or put a “bad cop no donut” bumbersticker on the car’s bumper.
You won’t of course, and that’s good, but sometimes its fun to plot revenge even when you won’t act on it.
Is it a legal parking space? If yes, then it seems like more of a problem to address with the collectors then someone legally parking an SUV or a smart car.
If you recycled and composted more, and consumed less, you would have fewer bins to be blocked. So it’s really your fault.
There’s a bright side, too. Most days that guy isn’t funneling any money to Uber.
Finally, you’re from Philly, right? You’ve got a key, right?
@3 It’s not a question of whether it’s legal. It’s a question of whether it is considerate or polite.
And there is simply no way for the collectors to reach my bins when the space between the parked cars is smaller than the width the bin. If they can see my bins at all behind a big, black SUV.
@4 It’s the recycling and yard waste bins that are the problem.
Seems that the driver is technically in the right. If it’s a legal parking spot, it’s the problem of the collector people to get at the bins.
What should be done is make it No Parking on that street during pick up days and you can tell the Lexus SUV-driving asshole he should take the bus.
How about leaving the recycle bins in the parking space. Problem solved.
Typical urban conundrum. In Chicago they shoot each other over parking spaces. They put up chairs in spaces they’ve shoveled. Take down those chairs and park at your own and your car’s risk. I wonder what people bickered over in ancient cities like Sparta?
I don’t what neighborhood you are in, but if someone needs a parking space, they are going to take one, whether it’s an asshole in an suv or someone else. I was assuming if one person doesn’t take it, another will. Talk to the waste collection firm for a solution, or if a neighbor has a driveway, put it on the sidewalk near their driveway. If it is legal to put them in the street, put them in the street.
The guy might be in an suv, the guy might be an asshole, but the little old lady who needs to park will do the same goddamn thing.
Seems like you should address this with WM who is contracted by the city to provide your service.. You are paying for the service, you are putting the bins where they belong. If it takes them extra time to walk your bins to the nearest driveway, back to the truck and back to where you left them maybe WM would then lobby the city to make new parking rules on collection day if the extra time increases their labor costs.
At the very least they are required to refund you for services not rendered as long as you are putting the bins where instructed on the right day.
Heh, typical attitude from the lux-boat driving set. When I was living up in Maple Leaf, there was a guy who always parked his Land Rover in front of my place, blocking a fire hydrant. As I was only a renter, and had little interest in being neighborly, I started calling the cops on him every time he parked there. He got probably two dozen tickets over a year or so for that.
The end result was a fire in a garage a half a block down and the SFD showing up, seeing his Discovery parked in front of the fire hydrant and smashing the windows out to run the hose right through the truck, and then keeping them there for the better part of six hours while they mopped up. The dude was stomping around in a frothing rage and almost got his dumb ass arrested for getting all up in the Fire Captain’s grill about it, while the neighbors and myself stood around laughing at his antics. The really funny part about it, was that he didn’t learn his lesson, and got a new parking ticket several times a week for the same offense for the rest of the time I lived there.
He was a pretty serious asshole anyway. Had one of those plaster Negro lawn-jockey statues in his patch of roses next to his front porch, and a “Buy American” bumper sticker on his Land Rover.
SUV’s tires: “Ssssssssss…”
Doesn’t the guy in the Lexus have a driveway? Put the garbage bins in his driveway.
You could always live on an arterial and get letters from the city about your compost bin having garbage in it (which pedestrians put in there because, hey, it’s better than littering).
About a year ago I came home to find someone blocking my driveway, which is shared by a business and four rental units next door to access parking behind the two buildings. I emptied my catbox on their windshield.
Print up some “Thank you for not parking in front of my waste bin” bumper stickers. Great for sticking on windshields and don’t damage the vehicle.
Since you are now supposed to put your pizza boxes in the yard waste and those are the bins you need emptied. Why not be creative with those pizza boxes? Maybe with arrows to your bins while on a certain Lexus. Oops the city worker getting your trash bin smashes out the headlight or rear light. Oops. To be more creative you could try fish pizza….could be interesting on a hot summer day. And your cat will like the pizza.
This is a residential street with plenty of available parking most times of most days. He could’ve parked 30 feet away. Or, he could have moved his car just a few feet forward to at least leave room for the bins to be emptied. But he couldn’t be bothered.
I think most of the folks in this thread miss the point. There are a lot of things I could do, but the point is, I shouldn’t have to. Folks in a city should have empathy for their neighbors, and show them the same consideration they expect in return.
why not you solve the problem by sliding your bins over down the block to where they can be accessed by the folks picking them up?
your beef is with the city for designating a parking spot and apparently not designating a contract with waste management that makes them, um, walk a bit more to get your bins. maybve they’re the assholes, why aren’t they walking 50 over through a driveway then down the sidewalk to get your bins?
and btw, plenty of assholes are in all economic classes, just saying.
“Tales from the Urban Hellhole”
Are you still located down by Graham and Rainier? It brings back urban hellhole memories of the Valley from about 1970. The old building with the smoke shop in it at the SW corner of Graham and Rainier was a corner grocery. The owner was shot and killed in a robbery. There was a Washington Mutual at the SW corner of Graham and Empire Way (MLK Jr Way) and everybody’s favorite teller, the sweetest girl ever, was shot in point-blank in the chest with a .45 during a robbery but she somehow survived. The whole community was pulling for her. Her eventual return to work was really something to celebrate. The owner of the little grocery at Graham and 28th So, was shot and killed during a robbery.
My recollection is that this took place over a couple of months during a summer of urban hell when it seemed like every shop owner was being robbed and killed. That was what happened only on Graham. The rest of the Valley on up through the CD was all a bit of a urban hellhole, if you know what I mean.
“Lexus SUV-driving asshole”
Sounds like you gentrifiers have it tough.
@20
Might that not mean the neighbor could get charged for having an extra trash?
@18 “To be more creative you could try fish pizza….could be interesting on a hot summer day.”
You mean anchovies, yes?
@19 You expect your fellow humans to refrain from being jerks? Good luck. Guns, knives, bats, and cement work better. Less recidivism.
I guess you missed my point. In today’s American urban areas, arguing with random strangers over parking could very possibly get you shot. And I would not want to see that happen to such an esteemed citizen as yourself.
@21 FYI, “urban hellhole” is a sarcastic phrase I stole from Atrios, who uses it to mock suburbanites who hyperbolically view cities as perpetually nasty and dangerous places. It acknowledges that urban life presents its challenges. But you know, we choose to live here for a reason.
I wonder what Hanauer drives? Should people empathize with you because Nicky won’t buy you a Lexus even after you suck him off?
@27 I think he drives an Audi. And as long as he doesn’t park it in front of my trash bins, I’m okay with that.