Chuck out

My inner city narrow street has atherosclerosis. Right at the moment, a coffee in the morning requires a meander down the middle of the street since the footpaths (pavements or sidewalks for you foreigners) are overflowing with the detritus of affluence.

You see, my neighbours buy a lot of stuff but then they find that an item either doesn’t fit in the house, or stops working, or they simply decide they don’t want it any more.

Cue the local council; they have mandated chuck-out periods where anything except building materials (exclusion due to the very nature of thieves in utes, aka builders) can be dumped on the footpath in breach of all the council’s usual environment, health and safety rules.

What follows is a fascinating insight into my neighbour’s susceptibility to marketing and a two-week long carnival of amateur and professional scabs cruising the streets looking for cash crops.

Its all great theatre but I need bat-like senses to avoid a pedestrian collision either on the footpath with some discarded item, or on the road with a ute.