Lincoln students explain the petty bin drama they’ve had with locals

‘Someone had put hot coals in our bin’


We all know student houses can be hit or miss when it comes to the university experience. In a recent Facebook post, a student at the University of Lincoln shared her experience of a Lincoln resident yelling at her for not bringing her bins in. Many students began to share their experiences of the locals going off on them about bins, as well as having a strong anti-student rhetoric.

We spoke to a group of students who shared their run-ins with local residents:

‘He was screaming at me through the letterbox’

Emily told The Lincoln Tab, “I heard like a rumbling and I was super confused so looked out the window and some guy was putting our bins at the front door and so I opened the window and was like what are you doing and he started shouting at me.

“Saying that he’s lived here all his life and we never put the bins in and I was like just stunned and he was screaming at me so I just called him a c*** and shut the window and then when he was gone I went and put the bin back out because I was feeling passive-aggressive and then I thought actually I’ll write a little sign that says we haven’t lived here that long and that I’m on my own so can’t always put them back in straight away.

“When I went out to put it on he was there just stood at the door and started screaming at me and being condescending. He was like ‘Oh I bet you’re a student and you think you’re better than me’ and then looking at his mate who was older laughing at me and shouting and I then he said I’m not on my own because he’s seen people and like said what my ex’s car was as if he has been like watching me and it was terrifying and in the end, I just shut the door and locked it and he was still screaming at me through the letterbox so I called the police.”

‘Someone had put hot coals in our bin’

Lucy told The Lincoln Tab, “I live with my girlfriend. We’ve come downstairs in the morning many times to find our wheelie bins have been moved in front of our front door, but have never seen anyone move them. We can’t bring our bins in because we can only get to the street through our neighbour’s garden and they have some furniture blocking the gate, but we live on the corner of the street so we put the bins in front of our wall so they don’t get in anyone’s way.

“But when they are moved they do actually block the footpath! Last summer, a man once said hello to me as I was unlocking my door and I said hello back, he asked me if we had just moved in and I said we’d moved in a few weeks before. He then asked me, “Are there any men living with you two?”

“I told him I didn’t understand what he was asking and he just laughed and walked away. I was on my own at the time and live with just my girlfriend so this scared me – I think it could be the same man who was harassing Emily. A few months ago a different man knocked on our door and told us our bin was on fire – someone had put hot coals in there and it was smoking and had a hole burned through it.

“I thanked him for letting me know and went outside to put it out, he started loudly telling me off, saying students were stupid and should know not to put hot coals in a wheelie bin, even after I told him they weren’t ours. He was verbally aggressive and stood watching me until I’d put the fire out, and then walked away tutting loudly.

“Now, whenever I see him he glares at me as he seems to think one of us put them in there. The same man also often looks through our living room window at us as he walks past and I once caught him stood with his face against the glass – he moved away when he saw me.”

‘Our bins had been pushed in front of our door’

Olivia told The Lincoln Tab, “We had some troubles with our bins in regards to them not being taken one weekend and they are on that fortnight cycle thing. We phoned the council and they told us to put the bins out on their non allocated day so they could come off route and collect. I went to uni around 8:45 for a lecture, put the bin out, and by the time I got back around 10 they had been pushed up right in front of our door to block the door. It’s happened a couple of times & that’s why I think our bin wasn’t taken in the first place.”

Another person told The Lincoln Tab, “So my partner is a student in Lincoln and because I’m 20 a lot of people assume I’m a student. My partner is also Polish and we try to speak Polish at home. When we moved in we heard neighbours saying things such as “f***ing students” just loud enough for us to hear.

Another student told The Lincoln Tab, “We had a neighbour who was pretty anti-student, she’d look into our bins and complain to us about their contents and one time even complained to our landlord and accused us of stealing food that was meant to be delivered to her. When we did no such thing.”

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