Nice try...

Most of us in life experience forced associations; thrown in with others in work, rest and play. If we're lucky we get along. If we're not, then not so much.

Of course factors come into play that influence this. Power imbalance is one, which is why I can never quite trust anyone who is higher ranked than me or is in my chain of command. Because they can tell me to do things and tell me off. Or they can even ignore my advice and do things I dislike. Again, part of how it is to live in society. Almost all of us have a boss that we have to report to. It's just how it is. A side benefit of course in being in a well-ordered society is almost all our other immediate needs are met- -- food, shelter and so forth --- which affords us the time to fixate on stuff like workplace power imbalance.

The other forced association is neighbours. We physically have to live somewhere and chances are you share a wall or fence with someone. 

We've been mostly lucky with neighbours since we moved to Canberra. Probably the most annoying was R---, a dude on disability and massive pain meds and who had a seeming inability to keep his massive Rottweilers penned. He was annoying for that and for being a talky-talk; someone who invited himself to your porch just as you'd gotten home and then started rabbiting on. He got evicted from his rental house and moved on. A new neighbour moved in and all was well. Then she left.

Now we have A---.

A--- is a bit of a fantasist. He too is a talky-talk, often buttoning up theWife for discussions about house-related stuff and making continual re-promises to take our berm of topsoil acquired from landscaping in the side yard which we dumped in the front. theWife, bless her, has a good memory. And her job in the real world is an administrative investigations-style role. So it only took maybe two conversations to realise that A--- was full of shit about his real life exploits and that he retroactively changed info he'd previously said in order to fit the new story he was telling now. He also took an inordinate interest in theBoy with theBoy now quite wary of him. theWife told theBoy that A--- has 'his own storyverse' and that A--- has trouble separating himself from it.

Apart from all of that A seems harmless enough, though his partners dog occasionally fires up late at night.

The other day we were leaving for work. It was bin day, the bins having been put out the night before. I saw that our green bin lid was propped up with something bulky in it. I presumed theWife had dumped something there so I went to see if I could better get it in the bin in case the garbage lads reject it. 

In the bin were a pair of older-style low-in-width flat-screen computer monitors. 

When A--- moved in he once asked if he could put excess recycling in our yellow lid recycling bin if there was room. We're good neighbours so we said yes. 

So perhaps A--- in his ever-shifting mind of revision thought this meant he could jam e-waste into our regular rubbish. And we knew it was him because he had left boxes for large-sized computer monitors in his driveway. 

In Canberra you cannot just chuck e-waste. We have a recycling system but it costs money to put e-waste into it. Which is why outside charity clothing bins small pyramids of fat old TVs, you know old-style CRT ones, have formed over the past several months. As a result of people avoiding paying the e-waste charge by illegally dumping their e-rubbish. We have for example about five CRT TVs that we're eventually going to get rid of but we will do it legally and properly so they get disposed of in the proper manner. We won't for example dump them on a charity to dispose of, cast them aside in public space like a wooded park, or jam them in someone else's bin.

theWife wasn't having it. She simply took the pair of monitors and jammed them back into A---'s bin. A bin I might add that had the same level of rubbish that ours had. Apparently just as theWife left she saw A---'s partner drive home to get something then leave again. She didn't spot that we'd re-transferred ownership of dated computer kit back to them. 

Unfortunately the garbage peeps did not see the monitors stacked in A---'s bin and I presume they went into general rubbish and therefore A--- did not get done for trying to dropping illegal rubbish into the system. In retrospect we should have simply left them next to his bin instead of in it but well what's done is done. 

Still, the whole thing was most annoying and incredibly rude. But then given A---'s clear mental health issues maybe he just couldn't see what he did was wrong? 

At any rate I am going to make up some passive-aggressive stickers for the bins that ask people not to put their shit in our bins. It'll make me feel better at least. 

I bet you never see this sort of plot-line on the show Neighbours. Likely because actual neighbour crap is too boring, even for them.