Neighbor throwing trash in the alley between us

ThisIsWeird

Fair point! Replies are based on this neighbour being a bona fide litter lout.

_Penny_Dreadful

Exodi said:

The picture was disappointing after reading the opening post, I thought there would be washing machines and torn up sofa's discarded down there.

I was expecting Viz’s 22 !!!!!! Street. 

propertyrental

Who owns the passage? Who has Right of Way?

prowla

I was hoping for a Reliant Robin in a skip!

gilbutre

ThisIsWeird said:

Ah, re-reading the OP's OP, I see that he has tackled the neighbour over this in the past, and that it seemingly stopped for a while. So that puts paid to my 'innocent' approach

Gilbutre, are you sure it's your neighbour? When you asked them to stop before, did you also ask "Why, ooohhh gaaawd, WHY?!".

Are these Freehold houses or LH Flats? Who is shown as the 'owner' of that passageway - chances are it'll be shown on the deeds as belonging to one property, with the other having a RoW over it. Any idea? And what else do your - and their - deeds say about it - that it needs to be kept in good order/shared maintenance, etc? Read them closely.

And, do you have Legal Protection in your house insurance?

I still think a damned good de-weed and clean is the start of any resolution process, then backed up with whatever is required. This could be a further appeal to the miscreant - provided you are certain it's them - and ask - repeatedly - why they do it. Askaskask until they give an answer. Oh, and have your phone set to record during any conversation...

You have a good view of the passageway from that window - you could set up a discrete inside camera to cover it, masking off anything beyond the top of the neighbour's wall - ie, include the wall top, perhaps an inch or so of their drive, and they'll still have 'privacy' (so no CCTV signs required), but anything coming over from their side should be captured. If anything appears, go through your recording in large jumps until the item isn't present, and then FF until you see it appear...

Read your deeds and see what it says about shared responsibilities there. Call up your LegProt for advice and guidance.

But, clean up that alleyway, and your own weeds too - show that you are actually concerned about tidiness. :-)

Thanks all especially @ThisIsWeird and @Exodi. I realise my overlooking of weeds is problematic so that's the first thing I'll tackle.

gilbutre

So we're 3 months later now. I thoroughly cleared the alley as well as my own driveway from weed. And after a few weeks of hiatus, these as****les resumed using the alley as their trash bin.

The frustrating thing is that I can't "reciprocate" by, for instance, gathering the trash and pushing it on their driveway because that would be escalation not reciprocation (alley is ours, their driveway is theirs).

I could file a complaint with Birmingham City Council, but what will the council do? Sending a letter or two to as****les achieves nothing, because almost by definition an as****le only understands deterrence.

Any suggestion?

Bigphil1474

The council might look at it as fly-tipping which now carries some hefty fines. In my experience, the local environmental waste team tend to like catching and fining litterers more than cleaning up after them. I'd try the council, even if it's just for advice.

teaselMay

Is it not just accumulation of wind blown rubbish over time? I live on the edge of a big village and have to move more than that out of my garden each week, its definitely not due to my neighbours!

Bookworm105

so several months later and you are no nearer having proof of what is actually happening.

as you say the alley is your land then are perfectly within your rights to install a camera whose field of vision is restricted to that alley only and then you will have confirmation of where it is coming from 

you can complain to all and sundry as much as you want but what do you think they can do about it other than write a letter where the recipient can, quite reasonably, respond "not me guv" (or words to that or other effect)? 

Sapindus

It's perfectly possible that the litter is blowing in off the street and when OP has a word with the neighbour, the neighbour actually goes and tidies it up themselves for a while before losing motivation, or could be a complete co-incidence that there was a "hiatus". Can OP actually state categorically that they have seen this neighbour dropping litter over the wall?  I mean, when tackled on the issue did they admit or deny?