A dirty game of tag

TheLastStraw: The champagne reception was well attended, there was a celebratory mood among the crowd as it prepared to say its goodbyes to the contents of the wheelie bin, contents that had overstayed its welcome on the road by three weeks or so.

These things can, of course, happen, but in this weather probably shouldn't. But you know yourself, you remember to put the bin out as the lorry is disappearing down the road and you can never wheel it fast enough to catch up. And when you try, you hit a kerb and the contents end up all over the next-door neighbour's freshly mowed lawn. The family thought they'd been bombed, it took half the day to clean it up.

It might have been that very neighbour who anonymously popped a copy of the Kyoto Protocol through the letterbox, asking me to belatedly ratify it because the fumes from the contents of my wheelie bin were doing more damage to "the air that we breathe" (a Hollies fan, evidently) than the US's emissions of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases ever could.

"At this point," read the accompanying note, "all your neighbours fear is the air that they breathe. It was bad enough that your grass was blocking our view of the sky, but at least you finally resolved that problem (although if you would only cut it once a week a lawnmower would suffice instead of a scythe). Anyway, seeing as you can't get the bin out in time in the morning is there any chance you could put it out the evening before? It's reaching the point where we'll soon all have to be evacuated. Yours etc, A Concerned Neighbour."

So, the evening before the next morning's collection, the crowd whooped and cheered and hugged and kissed as the tag was ceremoniously attached and the bin wheeled out to the front gate. There were even a few tears from the president of the Residents' Association, but that might have been because the aroma filling the air was a cross between smelly socks, bad breath, rotten eggs and sour milk.

Next day. Skip down the path merrily to collect empty bin. Wave at neighbours, who don't wave back. Grab handle. Pull. It's a very, very heavy empty bin. Lift lid. It's a very, very, very full bin, as full as it was when the tag was attached. Speaking of the tag . . . where is it?

The county council lady is sympathetic when I ring. "God, in this weather that'll be stinking in a week," she says, before being told that the wheelie bin was, in fact, already stinking. Now reeking so badly, having spent the morning in the sun, the neighbours had to close their windows and could venture out only when wearing gas masks.

"Grass cuttings," she presumed. Yes. Soggy, putrid month-old grass cuttings, mixed with gone-past-their-sell-by-date eggs, cheese, rashers, sausages, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, peanut butter, tuna fish, gungy stuff scraped off a frying pan and a dozen tissues used to wipe up the droppings of a bird that had come in the chimney and flown all over the house, depositing souvenirs on his mazy journey, lest he ever be forgotten.

"Uggh," she said, retching sympathetically down the phone. "I take it the flies are dying?" Long since deceased, they didn't stand a chance. But she could do nothing to help. Absolutely nothing. Sympathetic, yes; helpful, no. It was, she said, now a common problem: stolen bin tags.

"It's either people stealing your tag because they won't pay for their own, or it's young fellas having a laugh," she suggested, and there was divil a thing the county council could do about it.

"When did you put the bin out," she asked. June. "No, no, what time of day or night?" Evening time. "Ah ha," she declared, sounding for all the world like Miss Marple, "there's your answer! You need to put it out in the morning to lessen the risk of having the tag stolen, but unfortunately in your area you'll have to have it out around 7am."

Fair play to her, she kept her sense of humour despite dealing with such a distressed customer.

I've thought about hiring a pit bull terrier and chaining him to the wheelie bin, thus making the task of stealing the tag somewhat trickier. But if the pit bull terrier spotted the postman, the bin could end up in Manorhamilton. Booby-trapping the bin is another possibility, although while it might scatter the thief far and wide it would, presumably, do the same to the bin's contents.

If you can't beat them you could, of course, join them, but stealing the Hollies fan's tag isn't an option because he puts his bin out at 7am. I will, though, try again next week because I really do want the Hollies fan and his family out of that B&B as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, if anyone out there knows of theft-proof bin tags could they please give the county council a bell?