We are assigned big, 90 gallon trash cans in our neighborhood. You get one black one for trash which is picked up weekly, and one green one for recycling which is picked up every two weeks. Trash day is Thursday.
Last Thursday morning around 9 am, I was hauling out my trash cans and I noticed my neighbor across the street had not pulled his cans to the curb. Both his cans were overly full as the tops of both were propped open by trash. I assumed everyone had gotten off to work and school and that somehow their trash got neglected (They have 5 people in the family and everyone works or goes to school.), so I hauled his cans to the curb.
This is a friendly neighborhood and I can think of several instances of neighbors hauling neighbors cans in the 10+ years we have lived here, but I have never hauled a can for this particular neighbor.
Yesterday (Saturday), the husband came over to ask if I knew anything about his trash. I told him I had hauled it out. He told me that the trash had valuable stuff in it and now it is gone.
He told me that they had had company this week and that he had cleaned off his desk by swiping everything on top of it into a trash bag (he used his arm to make a sweeping motion) and set the bag aside. Then he said he (or another family member- I don’t recall) set the bag in the garage. Then he said one of his daughters moved the bag from the garage into the big trash can. Then his son put more trash on top of that bag. He said he knew the valuable bag was in the big can and he intended to get into the big can and dig his valuable bag out but hadn’t gotten around to it, was planning to come home during lunch and dig out the bag and haul the cans to the curb.
Then he said his son hauled the cans to the curb, but he told his son to bring them back because he had not yet retrieved the valuable bag.
Then he told me that bag contained 4 years of IRS records, “original documents” and his wedding ring.
Wow.
Of course, I feel terrible about this and apologized sincerely and profusely about 5 times as the story carried on.
But, I don’t believe him.
As an added note, we are generally friendly and I give his daughter a ride home from school every day, but we don’t “hang out”.
Here are the reasons I don’t believe him:
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I was working Monday and off Tuesday and Wednesday. I didn’t see any company at his house. I don’t mind their business, but we live directly across the street from each other and our driveways occur in such a fashion that if one of us has visitors, it makes it difficult for the other to get in and out of the driveway.
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They are a bit clannish Jehova’s Witnesses and don’t socialize. I can hardly think of a time that they have had visitors.
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Why would someone sweep everything off a desk for visitors? I could understand if there were a party or large group so you could use the table space, but there was no party that I’m aware of unless it happened on Monday. Privacy, maybe? Cleanliness?
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When did the bag get into the can- Monday (the day I don’t know if they had visitors), Tuesday, Wednesday? Would a person really leave a valuable bag in the trash for one or two or even 3 days?
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He knew the progression of this valuable bag from desk-garage-trash, and didn’t retrieve it?
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Why did he have the son return both cans from the curb, when he only needed the black can?
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While trash is picked up on Thursday, the time is random. Planning to come home for lunch to solve the valuable bag problem runs the risk of completely missing the trash collector. With two overly full cans, this will pose a trash problem for a whole week for regular trash and for two weeks for recyclables. Also, the collection company wants the lids to be closed. If you have over-filled cans too often, they will make you buy an extra can. They are expensive.
What do you think of this story?
