The gloves come off when rubbish ratbags play dirty at clean-up time

Local council household clean-ups are a fabulous concept that recycle a mountain of goods each year, but they can be triggering.

No, I’m not talking about angst over discarding a clapped-out pot your grandmother gave you, or baby mementos that have turned murky green from mould.

It’s more to do with the intense irritation caused by people who play dirty.

On paper, it seems like a legitimate and well-organised form of decluttering and communal recycling – why oh why does it have so many ways to upset people?

There are rules and the most important is don’t put your stuff out too early, which makes sense on several levels.

In part, it’s supposed to give the hardcore kerb shoppers less time to converge and scatter your items, but good luck with that.

At my most recent throw-out fest, moments before I topped the neat pile with an old toaster for aesthetic effect, you could almost hear the distant revving engines at the end of the street.

I barely got through the front door before a banged-up ute screeched to a halt outside my place on the wrong side of the road to cosy up to the gutter.

Out spilled a male about 45 in board shorts and thongs with a cigarette hanging out the side of his face.

He flung aside my toaster, a table lamp and a box of old books to get to a carefully placed clapped-out chair.

Without even testing it, he flung it in the back of the ute and drove off, but not before he chucked the remains of the fag he was mauling into my gutter.

My neat pile had been violated, but all I could do was look away in disgust.

That’s mild compared to some of the stories you hear around the traps about council clean-ups.

One woman recalled when she was awoken at midnight by clanging noises and flashing lights outside her bedroom window.

“I peeked through the curtains to see a couple wearing minor’s lamps on their heads rummaging through my stuff,” she recalled.

But it’s not always people scavenging for kerbside gold who forget their manners.

A friend, who has given up on household clean-ups, says his main beef was the neighbours who came from all directions uninvited with their stuff to add to his pile.

“Any shit they could find – old furniture, pot plants, et cetera. One dragged over a huge, rusty old bird cage that hadn’t even been cleaned,” he recalled.

This is clearly bad form by neighbours, because it can backfire on the householder when local councils start cracking down – and some do.

Here’s a warning on Wollongong City Council’s list of do’s and don’ts for household collections about timing and excess items: “Once booked, place items out by 6 am on your scheduled collection day, but no more than 24 hours before. Note: if illegal dumping occurs at your property due to early presentation of clean-up material, you will be responsible for removal of all materials.”

Wollondilly Local Council at Picton, goes further: “Piles greater than the 1.5 cubic metre limit will not be collected. Penalties may apply for illegal dumping for properties which are not within the collection limit.”

Sounds a bit unfair when it would be almost impossible for the house owner to prove their original pile conformed to the rules.

All the more reason for everybody to play nice.