AFTER living on two different council estates I thought I had seen how irresponsible people were when discarding their unwanted household items. How wrong I was!

When rents went up again, my husband and I decided to take the plunge and buy our own house. The street we live in is fairly quiet and the neighbours are nice. The only problem is the rubbish.

Every Thursday we put our bin out and, then, as soon as the bin men have been you have to run a gauntlet to get it back.

I made the mistake of leaving ours for 20 minutes and it had been nicked - again!

We are on our fourth bin in 12 months.

Not only that but the smell in the alley, which we share with Snape Street, is disgusting.

Two discarded Christmas trees, three old mattresses, a play slide, chairs, boxes of rubbish and dirty nappies - contents displayed - are littering the whole alley along with regulation dog dirt.

And, yet, no-one bothered to ring the council to come and clean it up.

Come on! Have some pride in the area you live in! And respect the fact that other people may not want to be surrounded in your discarded filth.

And, no, I am not some old whinger reminiscing about the good old days when pride was everything. I am 25 years old and I rang the council and they have cleaned it all up.

Enjoy the cleanliness while it lasts - and next time, think before you dump.

C LLOYD (Mrs), Cavendish Street, Darwen.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.