I don’t want your Sunday newspaper, takeout menu, flyer, business card, advertisement, bullshit charity request, or any other thing you may have. I don’t care if it’s part of a stupid, but legitimate, business plan or just an excuse to find out who’s out of town and has stuff worth stealing. Either way, your paper shit has become a perpetual incoming tide. Get it through your fucking thick skulls, you knuckle-dragging dirt fuckers: I don’t want what you are selling and/or there are better ways to determine when to burgle my house. So cut it the fuck out.
When some dumbfuck throws unsolicited shit onto someone else’s property, they are a littering motherfucker. I don’t lie awake at night hoping that you will rubber-band a menu for crappy pizza onto my doorknob. Ergo, you are littering motherfucker. I desperately want to collect all of these nasty, rain-soaked scraps of woodpulp and then dump them on the floors of all of the establishments that think this is a suitable way to advertise. I won’t, because that would make me a littering motherfucker, just like you, motherfucker. And I’d probably end up in court.
Why the fuck is there no law against this? Did Billy Bob’s Lawn Mowin’ & Mobile Pet Taxidermy team up with Vladimir’s Discount Sushi to “donate to” some city councilmen to get some kind of throwing-shit-all-over-the-place exemption? How does this serve the public good? Do people come home from work and say “Oh goody! Time to root through the shrubs in the dark!”
Don’t get me started on those goat felching bastards who keep delivering telephone books. Who the fuck uses telephone books nowadays, let alone five of the goddamned things?
I fully support this pitting. Why a landscaper that throws a baggie of rocks on my lawn or gets their flyer glued to my mailbox because it rained before I could take it off thinks I will be interested in their services is beyond me. On the other hand, one assumes that it must drum up some business or they wouldn’t do it.
One of the few nice things about living in a gated place with an HOA-- I haven’t had a single flier or knob hanger in the three years I’ve lived there.
That’s not true. One time a guy put a sign on my door, but I happened to be standing right inside, so I opened the door and looked at the sign. Pest control company. Alright. So, I look at the guy and say (in my normal, overly cheerful sweet tone), “I don’t think you’re supposed to be passing out fliers in here-- the HOA goes crazy over this stuff.” The guy hissed back at me, “WELL, I LIVE HERE. I CAN DO WHAT I WANT!” and walked off.
I threw out his flier and soon thereafter heard that the HOA fined him. Never again have I seen one of his fliers.
Catalogs and other stuff that goes in the mailbox doesn’t bother me as much. Of course, it is sadly wasteful that 90% of the paper that the USPS delivers to my house goes directly into the recycling without even being opened.
I would like to add to your pitting the goat-felchers who show up on your doorstep and try to sell you security systems. Dude bangs on my door: “We’ll install a security system for FREE if you just keep the sign for our company in your front yard. Oh, and pay the monthly service fee. For a contract period of three years.”
Um. No.
“Well, this is a dangerous neighborhood, and…”
No. It’s not. That’s why I live here.
“Well, aren’t you worried about someone breaking into your house?”
Let me ask you something, Goat Felcher. Did you hear the manical, furious barking as you approached my house?
“Yes.”
:: Points to 72-pound bulldog ::
See that dog, right there? The one frothing at the window, just hoping for a chance to see what your balls taste like?
“Yes.”
That right there is my security system. Thanks for stopping by.
When we get those at work (they bring 2 or 3) and they say “Where do you want these?” I usually say “over there, just toss them right in the garbage.”
My big pet peeve is the ones that stick crap on your car. I used to just toss it in the parking lot in hopes that the owner would find the crap all over his lot and call them and tell them to knock it off. As far as I’m concerned I’m not littering. They littered when they put it on my car. What I did is the same as kicking the soda can that was already in the road.
A few weeks ago some fitness club had gone through a Target lot and put cards in the everyone’s driver side window. When I grabbed mine it fell in. There was a little part of me that was hoping it would jam up the mechanism so I could send them the bill for it. I did grab the card off of someone else’s car so if there ever is a problem I know who to call.
It usually takes me a few days to actually pick up and toss out the community newspapers that appear in my driveway. The weird thing is that once I do, a new one appears almost immediately. Are they reluctant to litter more than one paper on my driveway at a time, or are they conducting some subtle sociological experiment on me?
I’ve told the local ‘paper’ to stop, a few times by email, and a few times in person. Sometimes it stops for a week, but it always comes back. I too have thought about stock piling it and then dropping it on their doorstep.
It also seems to rain every Wednesday when the paper comes so it’s always wet.
Is this a US only phenomenon or do people around the world have the right to trespass with the intent to dump worthless shit? Is there some dude in Romania standing at his front door shouting “Goddamn gypsies! I don’t want a 2-for-1 palm reading!”
I can get behind this rant; being a very territorial person, I don’t understand why I don’t have the final say on who gets to trespass on my property, and what they’re allowed to do while they’re on it. Utility guys here to read a meter, police, ambulance guys, etc. get a free pass; no one else does. And while I’m at it, Mr. Mailman, my neighbour has a sidewalk and so do I - would you mind using it, please?
In the Netherlands, and I think many other Northern European countries, there certainly is a “hawkers-shoving-flyers-into-your-mailbox” issue. You can get official mailbox stickers that say “Geen ongeaddresseerd reclamedrukwerk” (no unaddressed advertising) or some variant thereof, which prohibits that kind of distribution.
In the US, tampering with mailboxes (including using them to deliver unstamped advertising material) is a federal offense, but good luck trying to get it enforced. Likewise, solicitors can be cited for littering, but municipal authorities generally aren’t very proactive about it.
I loathe and despise those flyer distributors, and will never patronize any of their places of business. Buy an ad in a commercial advertising medium, you inconsiderate dumb fucks, and stop paperspamming my home and making me clean up your useless trash.
They also don’t have a right to walk onto your property unless you have specifically asked them to deliver something to you, i.e., the Postal Service or UPS and the like.
Have the courts ever weighed in on whether or not litter with writing on it is protected speech? Just how much unsolicited and unwanted fucking with other people’s property is acceptable in the exercise of speech?
Can I inscribe biblical passages on large rocks and heave them in front of your door?
Can I un-rake your leaf pile and use them to spell out “Eat at Joe’s” across your front lawn?
Can I tape a Jack Chick tract to your back while we are on the subway?
Can I TP your trees provided I write something on each roll?
Does the written word impart magical properties that allow the adorned object to transcend the right to undisturbed use of property? What’s the precedent?
