Well that was a surprising turn of events. Two garbage collection days ago my municipal black wheelie bin disappeared, prompting me to note it under a blog post going by a title directly influenced by a Ben Affleck directed movie.

Then on Thursday, Chantelle pulled up the driveway and hooted for me to come outside. Excitedly she told me that as she was driving home, she spotted two black bins lying in the front of someone’s yard and one of those bins looked a lot like ours – and now I need to quickly drop everything and come along with her to verify. So in I hopped, we drove down the street and around a corner to number 29 Whittle street, and sure enough, there was our bin, the telltale scratches and faded number immediately identifying it.

(Chantelle also cleverly figured out the owners of the other bin, matching up the initials as belonging to the complex across the road from us)

our black bin lounging behind the gate of 29 whittle street - guarded by a dog

However, both bins were behind a secured driveway gate, and with one big and one small dog taking decided interest in my presence so close to their gate, I beat a retreat. No doorbell, the neighbour didn’t have contact details from them, the security company noticeboard a sham, I opted to instead approach the owners of number 29 later that evening once they had returned from work in order to try and secure the release of my bin.

(My theory is that the bins simply got moved to the area either by the wind, construction workers or vagrants on bin day, and this person then simply gathered them in for safekeeping, but Chantelle is more on the path of them nicking them – which doesn’t make sense to me because if they were indeed nicked, why would they be lying in the front of the yard as if they needed to be seen?)

Anyway, I went back to work whilst Chantelle did a good Samaritan thing and went over to the other bin owner to inform them that their bin had been spotted. However, patience isn’t particularly strong with this lot it would seem, because a few minutes later, Chantelle learned that both bins had now been retrieved by this very angry bin owner who had roped in number 29’s neighbour to attract the attention of the dogs while he hopped over the gate and threw the bins back over.

Problem solved I guess.

So my bin is safely back home, and the owner of house number 29 Whittle Street must be scratching his head as to how two big black bins mysteriously disappeared from his yard, despite his doggy protection system!