Neighbours… everybody needs good neighbours. If only we actually had them and not someone accused of bin theft.

That’s what the Robson family who live at No.35, Rectory Road, Mellis, Suffolk have been wishing, ever since their neighbours, the Rowntrees, who live at No.37, stole their prized wheelie bin (allegedly).

It all started when Sandra Robson (54) went to take out her family’s trash last Monday evening in time for the bin collection early Tuesday morning. Upon opening the lid of her bin. She was horrified to discover that it was full of other people’s crap – including, a smashed-up old tricycle which she could have sworn belonged to ‘that little shit next door’, Sean Rowntree (5), the toddler son of neighbours John (unemployed) & Maureen (unemployable) Rowntree.

Disgusted, Sandra called her husband, Dave, downstairs to help her empty the bin onto the doorstep of No.37 – where she believed it originated and rightly belonged. To ensure that the Rowntrees got the message to leave their bin alone, Sandra instructed Dave to whitewash the words ‘No.35 RUBBISH’ on the side of their bin – which he reluctantly did with a sigh and several muted ffs’s.

Litter did she know

The next morning, amidst the revving of van engines, and the general ambience of life in a run-down, working-class street, Sandra opened her front door in her pink, tea-stained nightgown to retrieve the milk which had ceased being delivered about twenty years before.

What she did find, to her utter dismay, was that her beloved, freshly-daubed wheelie bin had been stolen, by the Rowntrees – obviously – or at least that’s what she thought. What she didn’t know was that a dopey binman had taken Dave’s daubed message to mean that the wheelie bin itself was rubbish and should be chucked in the dustcart – which it had been earlier that morning, but of course, haughty Sandra wasn’t to know that.

Neighbours had bin wrongly accused

Adding two and two together and coming up with five, Sandra called Dave downstairs again and insisted that he retaliate against ‘those f*cking f*ckers next door’ by stealing their bin and making it their own. Having done as ordered, dutiful twerp, Dave was further directed by his viperous wife, who was standing on their doorstep with her arms folded, and full of scorn, to get his tin of paint out again, and spell out the accusation, in large capital letters, that No.37 had pinched their prized wheelie bin.

It just goes to show, you never can tell… can you?