How Do I Stop Neighbours From Using My Skip?
Most people generally hire a skip for one reason, and one reason alone: to fill it.
You expect – very reasonably – that when you hire a skip you’ll be able to fit as much of your waste in as it will hold, and you’ll have control over what goes into it. This is important to ensuring you’re able to throw away everything you need to get rid of and that nothing that shouldn’t go in the skip doesn’t (some waste types, like electronics, can’t be placed in a skip or mixed with other materials).
But these expectations can be turned on their heads by the subterfuge of sneaky skip bandits who dispose of their own rubbish in somebody else’s bin.
The vast majority of our customers never have a problem with this, but luckily, there are some very simple steps you can take to prevent this from happening if you are concerned about it.
Read on for Just Skips’ top tips for keeping control of your bin.
Set Some Boundaries
Not everyone who uses another person’s skip is necessarily aware that it’s a problem.
Neighbours may see the appearance of a skip in the street as an opportunity to throw away a few things they’ve been meaning to get rid of for a while; not realising that this could pose a problem for the person who actually hired it.
There’s plenty of reasons someone could justify this: they’d let you do the same when they hire a skip or they’re only putting a little bit of rubbish in – how much difference could it make?
While neighbours who do this might not necessarily be acting as considerately as they could be, they’re still in all likelihood perfectly reasonable people.
Setting some clear, but neighbourly boundaries around your skip can easily prevent this happening.
Before your skip arrives, give you neighbours a heads up and let them know that you will probably need all of it for your own rubbish. Most neighbours will happily respect this, but you can always offer to let them put some things in it after you’ve finished filling it to bring them around. If you want to be even clearer, give them a set time when they can access your skip, such as the evening before it gets picked up.
Unfortunately though, not everyone may be this reasonable or cooperative. If you still have concerns about someone using your skip, here are our top three tips for deterring bin bandits:
Get in First
Filling your skip up quickly is the most effective strategy – if it’s already full, no one can put anything unwanted in it. Even if you don’t completely fill it up, if you’ve got in everything you want anyway, then a little extra rubbish won’t hold up any of your plans.
Another advantage of filling your skip early is that you can also arrange early pick up, which means you don’t have rubbish sitting outside your house for longer than it needs to.
Pick a Good Spot
The closer you place a skip to your private property (like the front of your house), the clearer it is that it’s intended for private use.
While some people may see a skip placed on public property (such as on a street or nature strip) as therefore being okay for public use, people are far less likely to even approach a skip that’s clearly placed on private property.
You can also use your property to actually limit access to your skip, as well as sending a message. People may not even be able to get to a skip that is placed close to your house far back from the street, is behind a fence or is even in your backyard.
After Dark
There are two very easy ways to protect your skip at night.
Setting up a couple of outdoor or security lights with motion sensors trained on your skip is a really effective way to deter people from sneaking rubbish in overnight.
To prevent anyone from being able to get rubbish in at all, you can also cover your skip with a tarpaulin.
Even though most people who hire a skip never have a problem, it doesn’t hurt to have a few tricks up your sleeve to deter people from using your skip – particularly if you know you will need all the space you can get or have certain types of waste to dispose of.
We hire skip bins in three different sizes up to 9m3, so you can always be confident that your rubbish will fit.
Check out the Just Skips blog for more tips on getting the most out of your skip. Check out the latest blogs about how to recycle plastic, moving into a new house and how to clean gutters!
