Neighbour has left rubbish in our shared "driveway". Thoughts?

manic111

manic111

manic111

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I'm in a ground floor maisonette. The flat upstairs had been tenanted, but the owner (leaseholder) was there for most of this week, presumably to get it cleaned out etc between tenancies. I came home tonight and there were a couple of cleaners there, doing a final clearout.

We share an entranceway, and have a small front garden. It's now covered in full bin bags - at a guess 15 of them, and I'm pretty sure that the owner has now departed.

I'm going to message him tomorrow and tell him that I presume that he'll be dealing with the cleanup, but he's a bit of a nasty piece of work and I fully expect him to ignore me or tell me to do one. What are my options? Realistically, I expect that I'll end up having to take it to the dump, but I'll have to rent a car to do so and am pretty loathe to do that without having a decent go at him first.
 
If he doesn’t want to do anything, could you just move the bin bags back upstairs to the front of his flat? If new tenants come and the place can’t be accessed due to rubbish, then he’d clean up.
 
So things have been there for one day and you've gone to the Internet?

Prior to cleaning it between tenancies is there a history of bags of crap being left allover your shared area or is this the first week you've seen it?

The cleaners did a final clean out on a Friday.. I imagine rubbish collection wouldn't happen on weekend. So Monday maybe?

Surely you just give it a week. Then speak to the people involved.

And as for messaging him. Rather than telling him that you presume. Maybe use a nice tone like 'hi ****, I was just wondering whats happening with the bags of waste on our drive, is it being collected soon or would you need some assistance taking it to the tip? Thanks'.

Hard to imagine that humans used to communicate properly only a couple of decades ago.
 
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Cheers for the reply guys. I'm not sure it's unreasonable to expect this to be dealt with quickly - I'm literally having to pick my way through his rubbish to leave my home.

Unfortunately I can't just move it back upstairs - we have separate doors into the building (it's an old, converted house).

Fair point on being reasonable with him, obviously I'll send him a nice message first up. But this is a guy who - when his flat was leaking into mine because his bath was leaking - told me that it was my issue to resolve because the water was coming through my ceiling so I was the one with the problem. I'm not particularly hopeful, therefore.
 
manic111 said:
But this is a guy who - when his flat was leaking into mine because his bath was leaking - told me that it was my issue to resolve because the water was coming through my ceiling so I was the one with the problem. I'm not particularly hopeful, therefore.
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In that case, just chuck all the bags into his garden.
 
manic111 said:
we have separate doors into the building (it's an old, converted house).
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Post it through his letterbox then :-) But seriously, I'd give him a few days to sort it. There may be a time that you need him to be accommodating if you were getting work done to your property.
 
Be nice until it's time not to be nice. I'd give him into next week, then if nothing's done contact him, then it might be time for the council.
 
All good points, thanks everyone. He's been a pretty horrific neighbour and I've no faith left in him to do the right thing, but you're correct that it's not worth starting the argument unless necessary. I've let him know that I think his cleaners/movers have left a load of rubbish outside, and asked if they'll be returning to clear it. I'm on holiday next week anyway, so he'll have a week to sort it before I come back and get grumpy!
 
if nothing else after a week or so enviromental health and rodents seen ...:) amazing how quickly he moves it when the council tell him they will move it and bill him.
 
OP doesn’t sound who’s front garden it actually is? I thought ground floor flats usually owned garden space no?

With what you’ve said about the landlord it sounds like nothing is going to happen with it (just saying I wouldn’t hold my breath :p )

Does he have the back garden? Might be your best option to chuck them there as suggested? I’d feel pretty strongly against incurring any expense to deal with it like hiring a car- that’s totally out of order.
 
DB_SamX said:
That's a very silly law, isn't it. It implies I could just dump all my rubbish into someone's garden instead of going to the tip and face no consequences?
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It's absolutely mental. They can take a civil case out against you to recover costs however.
 
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