Wednesday 16th October, 2019

What a relief; the binmen emptied the bin this morning. After last week I was worried that they might refuse again. Up until then, the binmen here have been awesome. They come every week for a start, which is a big improvement on the once a fortnight collection in Gostilitsa, and the nearest big, communal wheelie bin is right opposite my house, so I don't even need to walk far to throw out the trash. In fact, as I discovered a couple of weeks afer moving in, I don't even need to walk to the bin at all.

It was a few days after I had some friends here helping to clear the rubbish out of the old shop. Aside from making several trips to the recycling bins in Gabrovo with countless old jars, plastic bottles and paper, there were still about 20 large sacks full of junk, as well as assorted larger items like big old tin cans, a TV aerial, broken buckets etc. These were all heaped up out in the street next to the house. This was in addition to another 20 or so sacks piled up just inside the garden gate from clearing out the kitchen and pantry. I figured I'd wait until all the work was done and then just hire a huge skip and get it all thrown out at once.

Well, early in the morning I suddenly heard a vehicle tooting outside. Wondering if my parked car was somehow blocking someone's access, I opened the gate and saw the bin truck there. One of the binmen pointed at all the heaps of sacks and asked, do you want that taking away? Feeling rather thrilled I said yes, if you've got any spare room, thinking that maybe they could fit half a dozen bags in. Well they proceeded to take the lot! Not only that, they even emptied the sacks into the truck so that I could have the empty bags back (ready for future refills). As they worked, I noticed that they were sorting out any metal items and putting them separately under the lorry somewhere, obviously for selling at the scrap yard later.  Kudos to them for being resourceful!

Standing in the open gateway, collecting the steady stream of empty bags, I pointed out the mound of sacks in there too. This is rubbish as well, I casually mentioned, thinking I was probably pushing my luck, but wonder of wonders they took it all. I couldn't believe it. The final two things I wanted to get shot of were a manky old fridge and what looked like a washing machine casing which had been made into a cupboard. If you want scrap metal you can have these if you like, I offered, oh so generously with my fingers crossed. We've no room for those, he said (shame) but we'll come back this afternoon for them (hurrah).  And they did.

Apart from all the scrap, I gave them a 20 lev tip and vowed to put anything metallic to one side as future payments for all the thousand and one other things I need to get rid of. This arrangement seems to have been working well, up until last week.

Along with the many items of rubbish in the pantry, were about 8 crates of jars/bottles of food - at about 20 jars per crate that was a whole heap of mouldy botulism, and frankly I'd been wondering what to do with them. Initially I'd thought about having a nosepeg day and emptying them all out so I could then take the jars to the recycling bins, but the thought of opening all of those jars and then digging a pit big enough for the contents did not leave me feeling inspired, so I decided to take the lazy way out. I planned to put one or two crate's worth into sacks and put them in the wheelie bin each week and just get rid of them that way. So, last week, just before the binmen were due, I went out and lobbed three small bagfuls of jars into the bin.

It so happened I was in the kitchen when they came, and so had full view of what ensued. One of the binmen opened the lid of the wheelie bin, then reached for some kind of grappling hook off the lorry and proceeded to retrieve one of my bags. They then gathered round as one of the bottles of liquid was pulled out of the bag and held up to the light for examination. One of the men even tapped the bottle with a fingernail, before they then dropped the bag back into the bin, and drove off, without emptying it! I was shocked, not least because they were quite happy to take the far more hazardous sack of broken asbestos sheeting I'd put next to the bin, but had rejected the jars. Was there some law against putting liquids in the bin? Were they worried about leaving a nice drippy trail of tomato juice all the way into Gabrovo? What was going to happen now? Would the bin never be emptied again? If so, how long before the other villagers noticed, and worse, discovered that I was the one who had successfully taken them off the bin collection route? It's been a worrying week.

So, before the binmen came this week, my plan was to put as much stuff in the bin as possible, so they couldn't see the jars loitering there, and hope they'd forget about them. Late last night I went back and forth with plastic sheeting, chunks of cardboard and other assorted debris which was neatly spread out in the bin to cover everything. Then this morning I set my alarm to ensure I was up in time to see what happened.

Just after 7am along came the truck. One of the binmen pushed back the lid and blow me if he didn't start poking around in there again. Stop rummaging and just empty the bloody thing, I hissed from my hiding place by the window. Phew, he beckoned the truck to reverse into position and moments later the bin was tipped into the air and emptied. What a relief!

The more common sense part of my brain tells me that they didn't empty it last week simply because there was hardly anything in there to make it worth the effort. The paranoid part is planning how to better disguise the remaining hundred jars so they aren't discovered next time.