Warring with your neighbours over your wheelie bins isn't uncommon and most people will quickly slap their house number on the front of their bins to claim ownership over them when they get brand-new ones.
But one mum on Mumsnet has admitted she forgot to adorn her shiny new bins with big number stickers before putting them out ready for collection for the first time this week - and they've already been pinched by her neighbours.
Posting her story anonymously, the mum said she had to pay £90 for her wheelie bins to be replaced after moving into a new house where the previous owners hadn't left theirs behind - and because she lived in flats all her life prior to her move, she wasn't aware of the potential of jealous bin stealers until it was too late.
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The woman went to the extent of putting lining and "nice smelling powder" in her bins to keep nasty stenches at bay but was left horrified when she realised her food waste bin had been replaced by an older one that hadn't even been emptied.
She wrote: "I’ve lived in flats all my life until I moved to our house less than two months ago. The bin collection situation was all new to us and we spent £90 on new bins as previous owners didn’t leave their bins behind.
"To prevent my brand new bins from smelling I put a liner on them and sprinkled them with a nice smelling powder I bought online.
"The collection was yesterday, and just minutes ago I headed to my food bin to put my compostable bag with food waste in it to find the bin completely full up. Without a liner or compostable bags or anything. Just food waste directly on the bin."
The mum admitted that while her plight might seem "silly" to some, she was "so sad" that her brand-new bins had been pinched and replaced by ones that are in desperate need of a "deep clean".
She added: "I am so upset … Is this a thing or I’m just unlucky? It might sound silly, but I’m so sad that my clean new bin has been swapped by an old stinky one that I now have to sort out and deep clean. I don’t even have space to put my own food waste for the rest of the week!"
Commenters on the post were quick to offer their solutions to help the mum, with many of them informing her of the importance of putting your house numbers on your bins.
One said: "You need numbers. Someone stole my big grey refuse bin one day. After that, I got numbers."
As someone else added: "I'm guessing you didn't put your house number on your nice, new, clean-smelling, lined bin. Go and get it back from wherever it is, and do it quickly before they paint their own number on it!"
While other commenters stressed how "serious" bin collection is, as they shared similar tales of their own wheelie bins being nicked.
Someone posted: "Bins are serious business. Our across-the-street neighbours, who I've known since primary when they were parents to my classmate, nicked my clean bin and left their broken grubby one. My ring doorbell saw it all. I swapped it back and I wasn't even subtle. It was all I talked about for weeks."
And another wrote: "Someone stole my large bin about 6 months ago. They can't use it as a waste bin themselves because all large bins are registered to an address as you only get them for exceptional need.
"The council still haven't replaced it - no spare bins apparently - so I have had to buy my own storage and then empty the bin bags out of it onto the street on every collection day."
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