SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I live in a beautiful, rural area in Northern Caliofornia. A few days ago, Thursday eve, someone dumped a huge pile of trash and old furniture and old plastic buckets of fertilizer, roof sealant, old lawn mower, bed frame, and roofing tiles on the property next door to me across the street. It's undeveloped land but I have an easement to it because that's where my well is. This pile of crap is 10 feet from my well!!!

It hurts my heart to look at it. It's such a desecration.

They also dumped two old water tanks on Saturday eve. We saw 2 guys in a white pick up but didn't get the license plate. I've installed a trail cam in case they try again.

I've talked to a few neighbors, last night some distant neighbors knocked on my door since I'm closest to the scene of the crime. They had also seen a white pickup dumping.

I'm calling the county sheriff today when they open at 8am. They don't take illegal dump calls over the weekend.

The landfill is 20 miles away. It's open every day. A pick up full of stuff costs about $10 to dump. Why can't they just go there instead of creating so much work for other people to clean up after them.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

It's horrible to look at!

InnerLight...

I'm really sorry...I just don't understand people sometimes.

We live on a corner and for some reason it's the best place to throw all your fast food bags out your window I probably pick up 3 bags a week on average along with water bottles and soda cans. But I can't imagine a huge heap of trash being dumped!

I hope you have some luck with the police.

I live in a farmhouse on a two-lane highway. In the 18 months I've lived here, I've cleared the ditch in front of the house on a regular basis. We get lots of trash, some broken down furniture, discarded electronics, and even deserted pets.

It's infuriating and heartbreaking.

We get a LOT of pets. Because you know how much everyone in the country loves cats.

It makes me sad for all of those little kittens.

I hate this. It is not a victimless crime as you know - contamination of the land/water, expense of the property owner to clean it up, time spent reporting it and time spent in court of they find who did it.

My step son and a friend were cited for illegal dumping when they were 19. The father of the friend own a company that cleaned out houses when they were abandoned or if someone passed away. Landfill permit was only $20 and the dump was closer than the private land they were dumping on - but they dumped it all there to avoid the extra fees for certain items.

Their defense was that the family was poor and couldn't afford it and "it wasn't like anybody was using it." Ugh!

The clerk gave them both a suspended sentence for a year on the condition that they complete HS or get a GED, do 100 hours community service and stay out of trouble. Step son did get the GED but did nothing else. They got an slap on the wrist and the father just started dumping the stuff somewhere else.

It makes me so angry - I am sorry you are dealing with this.

ETA - they were also originally charged with criminal trespass, which would have carried a larger fine/sentence. But it was thrown out because the no trespassing signs were not as clearly marked as they could have been. Seriously?

[This message edited by turtle72 at 1:22 PM, January 27th (Monday)]

This happened to me as well. I had moved and my house was on the market to sell. I also owned the lot next to my house as well. One of my neighbors called me and said that someone dumped about a dozen jumbo sized trashbags in my empty lot up against the road. I called the county and they refused to pick up because I couldn't prove the garbage wasn't mine. Even though I hadn't lived there in a few months. So I borrowed a friend's truck to get the trash. Little did I know that the trash bags were full of clothes. Wet clothes. I could barely lift them into the truck. I finally did and then had to drag them to the dump.

I was pissed because these clothes could have been donated.

I was in physical pain the following few days.

Wasted gas money and the fee I had to pay at the dump because my county refused to help. (Why do I pay taxes?)

And for some reason I took it very personally that they targeted my property.

This property was also the target of McDonalds bags and soda cups.

Makes me sad.

Well I called the sheriff's office at 8am and after being transferred a couple times I left 2 messages for him, one on the regular line and one on his cell. He didn't call back today so perhaps they are overwhelmed and have this one guy for the whole county.

I have to leave town for work tomorrow and I won't be back until Saturday. It's going to rain in a couple of days and make the pile more gross than it already is. I have a feeling I will have to try to coordinate help from neighbors to take it down to the dump myself.

Some people are pigs.

Lord help me focus on the good ones that will help me through this.

This reminds me of when I lived near the downtown of a smallish city. We moved into a house whose backyard backed up to a very well used alley. We came home every day to trash from every fast-food joint known to man.

But there was also always a pile of household waste: egg shells, coffee grinds, orange peels, etc. Eventually we figured out some jerk neighbor (we never figured out which one) was using the whole in our fence as his own personal compost! Right into OUR yard, onto our lawn.

I hope you catch the idiot(s) who are doing this, hopefully on tape. There was an incident here a while back where someone dumped all sorts of crap near one of the rivers. It made the local news and they asked for any info anyone had about the incident. It took about a week but they caught the guy and he was required to clean it up.

Maybe if you can catch whoever it is, you and your neighbors can spread the word that this guy (or woman) is too lazy or insensitive to do the right thing and perhaps that will stop them.

Caught the guys dumping again on Sunday on camera including a shot of their license plate. Handed over 3 8x10 glossy photos to the sheriff today.

It's not a criminal offense here. It's an 'administrative' property. They tell them to clean it up and they have to have a receipt from the dump. They get fined $100. Nothing!!!

Hopefully this will mean I will not have to clean it up myself.

Totally elated to catch them on camera. Fingers crossed this leads to a cleanup soon!

I am SO glad that you got the guys who were dumping. What the heck, were they cleaning out an old house or something... why would they need to come back over and over to dump stuff

Illegal dumping cleaned up!!!!!!!

Photos helped sheriff id the guys and he told them to clean it up by the end of the day and they did.

I am thrilled.

They had just bought a property, two weeks ago they had a brush fire that got out of control because they didn't put it out properly at night. 4 fire trucks came, they burned 4-5 acres. This is so close to my house. They then put the burned crap and old junk from the property and dumped it by my well where some neighbors have garbage cans and a dumpster.

They were 3 young dopey idiot guys.

So glad to drive home last night past the scene of degradation and find the hideous pile gone.

Thank you county sheriff.