Dear Neighbors

Yesterday we received a letter from some neighbors on our block about trash collection. These people took it upon themselves to band together as somewhat of a neighborhood board. They reminded us of the guidelines for putting out trash during the week, and there was even a section that was highlighted. It claimed to be friendly, but in fact it took a rather condescending tone. I (as well as others) took offense to the letter and so I’ve crafted a polite but firm response.

Dear Neighbors:

I realize that your letter probably didn’t mean to offend anybody. You go to work in order to pay for your home, and consequently you want it, and the neighborhood it’s in, to look nice. However, I feel that sending everyone on the block a memo about appropriate trash etiquette was rude. We received a really nice note after our first week here when we weren’t aware that you were supposed to put your trash on one side of the street only. From then on, I assumed that another reminder would not be sent our way.

We all have lives to lead and quite frankly, some of us are more stressed than others. Some of us work in jobs we despise, others go to school, and some are even unemployed. We worry about how we’ll pay next month’s rent or if we’ll have enough money to last us until payday. There are times when we can’t even afford to order a pizza. I apologize that sometimes we forget to retrieve our bins on the day the trash was picked up, but for most of us, trash isn’t the first thing on our minds when we get home. We’re trying to focus on shaking off the anxiety we’ve been carrying all day so we can at least try and enjoy the rest of our night. But then we walk in our door and find a letter about making sure we’re putting our trash in the correct spot, somehow insinuating that we’re not as good as the rest of you.

Honestly, if we don’t have a problem similar to someone on Hoarders, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to try and scare us with the threat of fines. Next time, before you send out a note to the whole block, please consider that everyone has different priorities and no one appreciates being treated like troublesome neighbors.