Thanks, everybody! Sorry to put this in the wrong forum, I just couldn't figure out where to put it, and I thought some other people with inviting gardens may have also had trouble keeping people out of them. The garden that came with the house is really striking, and people who drive past often slow down to look at it or ask me about it. There's 70-something raised beds that are covered in patterns of tiles. It's a VERY conspicuous house. So I'm actually a little surprised that tweakers are targeting it, instead of somewhere less conspicuous. So, I just bought a gigantic "NO TRESPASSING - violators will be prosecuted" sign today. It's ugly, but I guess I need it. And a solar-powered motion light, which I'll install tomorrow. I also found a crack pipe in my backyard today. :( It was hidden underneath a pile of weeds I'd pulled a few days ago and left on one of my garden paths, so someone has definitely been in my yard in the last few days. RE: tweakers (yeah, I mean meth)...There's a big meth problem in this town, and there isn't a single neighborhood that's immune to it. When I bought the house there was no evidence of parties inside, though - in fact it was completely pristine inside every time I looked at it. And I never saw any trash around the house before I bought it, but now the sidewalk on one side has become a dump yard and shopping cart parking lot. :( RE: getting to know the neighbors...I'm on a corner, and my next door neighbors are a little sketchy, unfortunately. Very unapproachable. Come to think of it, so are the elderly couple across the street, and most of the neighbors in general. At least one person has been looking after my house while I'm at work, though, because someone yelled at my brother-in-law when he dropped off a compost bin in my yard, demanding to know what he was doing there. RE: surveillance cameras. I've thought about getting one but wouldn't know how to hard-wire it. Is this something the police might help with??? I'm not sure I'd want anyone to KNOW I had a surveillance camera, though, because I'm afraid my sketchy next door neighbors are either selling drugs or growing marijuana and I don't want them to think I'm trying to get them busted. Because if they were busted, they'd just end up right back in the house, with a grudge (the family has owned that house since the '50s, so they're not going anywhere). I don't want to start any sort of war with the neighbors. Does anyone know if you legally have to post a sign when you have a surveillance camera? Thanks!

I never put paper items in my trash especially things with my name on them. My garbage is mostly kitchen stuff and cat litter. I recycle paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and cans. I don't use my composter anymore because of the rats found in our neighbourhood this summer. I use grocery store bags for my garbage and have it hanging on a hook on my landing out of reach of the cats and dog. As soon as it is full, I tie it up and put it in the plastic garbage pail outside my side door and take the pail to the curb on garbage day. I put my bag of cat litter in my neighbour's Herby Kerby with his permission because sometimes the garbage man won't take away the trash if he sees a bag of it in the pail. We are supposed to bury it and not put it in the garbage but who does that? Tonight though because it is still windy I got a big green garbage bag and went outside and took all the grocery bags of garbage out of the pail and put them into the bag and out to the curb. I put the cat litter in it too. LOL The garbage man tends to leave the pail on the road instead of my lawn. My pet peeve about the garbage man is why do they always break my pails. I am one person and don't have a lot of garbage so my pail isn't heavy. They break the handles off, or they toss it so much that the sides break. I can't use my wheeled garbage pail anymore because the handles have broken off and they took away the lid. LOL I use a shorter green plastic pail now and they even broke this one. Anne

Hey tox, so I already have cameras installed in the house but then it seems like they are throwing it on the far side of my house which are the blind spots of my camera. I been living here for the past 5 years already and this trashing thing only happens once in awhile. I highly doubt that I pissed anyone off since in this neighborhood people don't associate with each other. However, our next door neighbor just moved in recently around a year ago. In the beginning the elder hit my car and didn't want to apologize or admit that it was his fault and that took a long time and in the end we just forgotten about it and let it go. There was also once where we saw their family members who was old enough to act, toss their unwanted trash from their car onto our place. Some of the trash are from Starbucks and there are some kids order, which makes me think that it is them, since the trash is right next to their house. But I don't want to jump into conclusions. Aside from that I previously talked to some who I usually would say "hi" when passing by, but they also said that they weren't sure who did it.

They may be able to use the top pull out & bring it to bottom then detach the door & attach to pullout. You could keep the space above for trash bag rolls & have a smaller trash can or you could cut the top part out to get a taller trash can. Like this...