Unclutterer

1. Posted by KateNonymous - 12/16/2009

   Yes, although perhaps not in quite the same way. Mr. Nonymous and I have noticed an increasing number of trailers with advertising on them–sort of like street-level billboards–parked along various major streets in our part of town. Invariably, they block things like the driver’s view of the approaching intersection or driveways. In one case, the trailer is parked along a section with signs that read “no unhitched trailers.”

2. Posted by Lucy - 12/16/2009

   My DH pulls them up in the course of his job. He works for a utility company and it is illegal to put them in the utility right of way as they may damage underground wires and cables, some of which are only a few inches beneath the surface.

3. Posted by Meg - 12/16/2009

   What’s funny is that just this morning, I was driving down the busy road to work and saw a big sheet of bright pink bubble wrap on the side of the road. I couldn’t safely get rid of it myself, but if it’s still there at lunch, when there is less traffic, I’ll prolly go pick it up.

   I think, as long as people are doing this safely, this is great – if everyone pitched in a little bit the world would look a little less cluttered.

   But perhaps that’s just a dream!

4. Posted by Karen - 12/16/2009

   I used to live in Virginia near DC and I applaud Juli. Even when VDOT had money, they couldn’t keep up with the signs. I don’t think I could follow her example in that area, the roads are too congested to safely drive, let alone get out on the median.

   Now that I live in an area where it is safe to actually walk my dogs, I pick up trash on the road, but in our area, I find like one piece every few weeks.

5. Posted by Rue - 12/16/2009

   Every time I see trash along the side of the road I always think “someone should be cleaning this up” but I don’t think I would want to do it. Too dangerous. But I’m thankful for the people who do!

   The one weird uncluttering thing I always had to fight was when I was still in college, I’d check out flyers that were posted on bulletin boards and walls. I hated, HATED to see ones for events that had already passed. It just baffled me as to why the people who put up those flyers didn’t come back and take them down when the event was over. Guess it’s a little too much common sense!

6. Posted by WilliamB - 12/16/2009

   Good for Juli. I hope she turns the signs into VDOT and they use them as irrefutable proof of violation and fine the offenders. As a next step it’d be nice if the offenders then had the fine plus penalties added to their tax bill if they don’t pay.

7. Posted by Amanda - 12/16/2009

   This might just inspire me to clean up more near my townhome. I live on a city street near a farmer’s market and several convenience type stores. Often stray plastic bags, paper cups and like debris are on the sidewalk in my front of my and other folks townhouses. It bothers me, perhaps I’ll take a bag with me at lunch and pick up debris.

8. Posted by MsDasha - 12/16/2009

   Its a little crazy to go around picking up public litter, but I totally get it. When I was on vacation in Korea, I noticed that a there are A LOT of older women that do that.

   A street near my house has an off track betting place and there is always a ton of fliers and papers all over on that street. Since we are near the water and there is a lot of wind, it’s like a tornado of litter. That has been a problem since I have lived in this neighborhood, over 15 years. It has always bothered me but I’ve never actually picked up the garbage!

   This post has inspired me, however – I’m currently on the phone with 311, the NYC municipal help line, putting in a request that a garbage can be placed there. I have a confirmation number and my request will be evaluated in five business days. We’ll see if anything happens, and if a garbage can has any effect!

9. Posted by Susan in FL - 12/16/2009

   There are a lot of vigilante road cleaners out there. My hubby and I live in a rural area and frequently stop to pick up trash and debris along the road. We pick it up with gloves, bag it and put it out with our trash. Its a never ending, thankless task. Once in a while, someone will honk and give us a thumbs up. That is enough to keep us going.

10. Posted by savvy - 12/16/2009

    If the potential fine is $100 per sign, it wouldn’t take fining more than a small fraction of the offenders to pay for cleaning up a lot of signs. Why doesn’t the VDOT see this?

    It seems this could be a good way to create a few jobs too.

11. Posted by momofthree - 12/16/2009

    My son’s boy scout troop does a six times a year clean up along the road that is north of the small airport near us. It’s a fairly heavily travelled east/west road. The boys and adult supervisors have a silly contest each to see what team found, eg: oddest piece found. No actual prize, just handshakes all around knowing that they have made that stretch of road a little cleaner. There is usually one cop car with lights swirling to alert drivers to slow down just a bit since the kids/adults were along the side of the road.

    My girl scout troops (childhood and now as adult leader) every fall and spring did/do a huge clean up of the school property. Again, silly contests but always a sense of doing good because the school playgrounds were cleared of all sorts of junk.

    Kudos to those who take it upon themselves to make our places a little bit neater.
    Wish everyone had the same thought processes.

12. Posted by kathleen - 12/16/2009

    I consider picking up trash to be a very easy form of public service. I walk my dog along an urban beach twice a day, and I often take an extra bag with me and pick up cups/papers/bottles etc. along the way. (I draw the line at picking up other dogs’ poop, though). If you see it and annoys you – why not do something about it. It only takes a minute, and it feels good!

13. Posted by Julia - 12/16/2009

    I live in a dense Boston neighborhood that has a strong local posse of park-cleaner-uppers & street neaten-ers. We also have less crime than any abutting neighborhood. I believe that keeping the outside world neat shapes the behavior of visitors, makes them less likely to be pigs because it’s definitely going to be noticed. And corrected. And their plate number is going to get called in to the local police.

    As a dog owner, some neighborhoods are a total disaster – chicken bones & fast food wrappers every ten feet. If people threw those out, instead of on the ground, it would make a huge difference in my quality of life.

14. Posted by Meika - 12/16/2009

    I think that’s awesome. Why is it crazy, though? Go civic responsibility! We’re all responsible for the environment in which we live – we can either pay the government to pick up after us (which doesn’t seem to be working very well in an era of budget cuts) or we do it ourselves. I have little kids around so no time to phrase this well, so I hope it’s not coming off as too abrupt – not how I intend it!

    As a side note, I think it’s a shame that multiple commenters have mentioned that it’s unsafe to get out of their cars to restore a bit of visual peace to our world. Wouldn’t it be nice if our environment was built around people instead of around automobiles?

15. Posted by Peter - 12/16/2009

    I’ve got this patch of city owned grass next to my property. Me and my neighbor take turns mowing it. Hey, it reflects on our neighborhood, right?

16. Posted by Jeri Dansky - 12/16/2009

    I’ve picked up litter in my neighborhood, and on walks into town. It was all perfectly safe – I’m doing roadside pickup, not the medians.

17. Posted by Mike - 12/16/2009

    Deja vu from back in the 1980s when I was a boy scout.

    I’m not going to threadjack and make this all “political,” but part of the reason this happens is because there is far too much public property, including too many public roads, and not enough privatization. People tend to clean up their own things more readily than they will volunteer to clean up commons — though I do tip my hat to those of you who have done the latter.

    Those of you vigorously uncluttering now, think back: Back when you lived in a college dorm, or at summer camp, or a shared apartment, or some other time in your life when you dwelled in common with at least one other person not married or related to you — how industrious were you about cleaning and uncluttering? How much did you resent having to clean up a mess left by a roommate?

    These are experiences most of us have had, but in not pushing for increased privatization of property, I think we’re failing to take one of the key lessons of those experiences to heart. And thus we have some good-hearted folks doing what is really an unfairly large share of work that ought to be done by a person causing the mess, not a volunteer.

18. Posted by techandlife - 12/16/2009

    Where I live in Scotland we don’t have a problem with illegal signs thank goodness but we do have a litter problem. I live in the country and try and get 40 minutes brisk walking exercise each day along the country roads. It’s depressing to walk past so much litter, so twice a year I get out the disposable gloves and black sacks and clear the stretch of road about a mile on each side of my house, watching out for traffic of course. My neighbour does the same. Wish more would join in and take a pride in the country.
    I’ve blogged about it before if anyone’s interested:

    http://www.techandlife.com/index.php?s=litter

19. Posted by Erin - 12/16/2009

    I applaud the woman collecting the signs. I too dislike when public areas become cluttered, but have never done something so time-consuming!

20. Posted by JC - 12/16/2009

    My cub scouts clean the same park in spring each year after the snow melts. We have a borough wide clean up period after the snow is gone. People get free, bright yellow, heavy duty bags. For a two week time period, the borough will pick up the full bags along the highway. The last Saturday is contest day where there is a barbeque and several bicycle prizes are given to the youth who pick up the most trash and turn it in.

21. Posted by Max Leibman - 12/16/2009

    I’ve never gone after signs (though I admire that), but I have done vigilante litter clean-ups. A few summers ago, I was living in a city without reliable transportation and walked EVERYWHERE for several months, and once or twice a week I would take an empty grocery bag and pick up litter along the mile or two of one of my routes to the grocery store or library.

22. Posted by Rosa - 12/16/2009

    I’ve always done spotty cleanup when walking – but now that I have a little kid, we do this a lot. He loves it. We started this spring with picking stuff out of the storm drains so the giant puddles at each intersection would go away, and he really really wanted to help, so it became a regular activity – we take the little red wagon, and pick up trash and recycling separately. Too bad there’s no bottle deposit in my state, he’d make a couple bucks a week.

    We live in an urban neighborhood near a large park, and my experience is the complete opposite of Mike’s – all the trash is along the street in front of private homes, where people park their cars & get in and out of them. The only exception are bus stops – there are apparently a lot of kids eating breakfast & dropping wrappers where they wait for the school bus. There’s near that volume of trash in the park.

23. Posted by Barbara - 12/16/2009

    @ Mike,
    Privatization or lack of it is not the problem. Very seldom it is the owner who litters, the problem are the litterers. Even if a property is privately owned somebody will litter it, and that is normally not the person who owns it.
    What is nessessary is a change in attitude of the people who throw their trash out of a car window! Simply as can be: Do not litter, neither in public nor in privately owned spaces. Like the Boyscout’s motto: No trace left behind. Take responsibility for what you do, not only for what you own.

24. Posted by Chris2 - 12/16/2009

    I have always made it a point to clean up outside my office building; it makes the place look more professional and may very well cut down on crime.

    I have been rewarded twice for my efforts. Once I went to pick up a rather large box left on the side of the street and found a perfect swamp cooler motor that I am still using at my home. My other reward was a $5 bill stuck in a tumbleweed!

25. Posted by Larry - 12/16/2009

    Interesting. I’ve never had the urge to do this along the roadside but in this economy we’ve had a couple of houses in our neighborhood stand vacant for a while. I did get involved with some of the other neighbors to keep the houses up a bit – dealing with uncollected mail and newspapers, having the yard mowed, etc.

    I think the more the situation impacts us or our families, the more likely we are pitch in. I imagine the people you highlighted saw the areas they were tidying up as kind of an extension of their personal space as we did the vacant houses in our neighborhood. Under that circumstance it seems only natural to keep it looking presentable.

26. Posted by Christine - 12/16/2009

    Grrr… I hate when signs are posted all over the place! The worst are those political campaigning ones that stay up for months after the elections are over. For every sign left up after an election, a pollution fine should be given to the candidate.

27. Posted by Christine - 12/16/2009

    And I forgot to add: Kudos to everyone who is cleaning up their neighborhoods – it’s wonderful thing to do!

28. Posted by gypsy packer - 12/16/2009

    I once pulled a full pickup load from a small public spring drainage.

    Seriously, in GA you can notify locals that you intend to sponsor a stretch of road, and they will, if you desire, put up a sign giving you credit for it. Charities, fraternal groups, and, rumor has it, even a KKK group, participate.

29. Posted by fasteddy - 12/16/2009

    I keep a roadside area adjacent to our house mowed and have replanted some native species there. It was graded but left to erode after local construction was complete. It’s adjacent to a stream and it seemed important to plant a filter strip to mitigate runoff.

    There are quite a few guerilla gardeners around.

30. Posted by PlantingOaks - 12/16/2009

    I once spent a while talking to a blacksmith reenactor at a local fair. Apparently, they love election season because they use the wire from the political signs as ‘stock’ to hammer into new things. Very cool homegrown recycling.

31. Posted by Babs - 12/16/2009

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....leanup_Day

    I have participated in Federal Lands Cleanup Day at a lake just north of Kansas City.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Bird_Johnson

    Lady Bird Johnson was instrumental in promoting the Highway Beautification Act in 1965. Believe it or not a lot more people littered then than do now. Her campaign really changed peoples attitudes.

32. Posted by Gregory - 12/16/2009

    I pick up litter when I’m out walking as long as it’s safe to do so. I also pull up election campaign signs that are up after the election. I’m not surprised the candidates don’t come back to get them, but some could be reused for their next city council election cycle. I’m with Julia…keeping your neighborhood or street neat discourages others from littering. I guess clutter begets clutter!

33. Posted by Pat - 12/16/2009

    I am bugged by the political signs that appear months before an election and don’t seem to disappear afterward. I will wait a decent amount of time (close to a month) once that election is over but if those signs are still up (and they usually are) I will stop and pull them out of the ground. I reuse the wires in my garden and recycle the actual sign itself. I have never pulled one from anyone’s yard, just the ones that are posted at intersections, or (and this must be a local thing) those that appear near swamps. That might mean something but I don’t get it.

34. Posted by Leonie - 12/16/2009

    This isn’t quite uncluttering…but it is a nice positive externality. There is a woman who walks her lawnmower, the type that you just roll and it cuts grass, (not gas powered)from her house to the grassy embankment that runs along the back of our homes. She says she does it so she can walk her dogs. But it also benefits those who want to run/jog or walk their pets too.

    It’s not “dangerous” as no cars pass by, but it is a lovely thing that she does. Though I don’t walk or need to use that area, I’m sure others appreciate it. I see her mowing that wide and long strip more often than I see city workers out there with their massive machines!

    As for vigilante unclutteting…no, I’m not willing to risk my life picking up trash in a city whose drivers are renown for not seeing pedestrians, runners, joggers or cyclists…

35. Posted by Elizabeth - 12/16/2009

    I live in Fairfax County and that woman is now my hero. The sign problem is entirely out of control. In the five years I’ve lived here it’s become disgusting, and the political signs get larger and more popular every year. Last year I wrote both political parties reminding them that their signs were illegal and should be removed, since they probably don’t want to imply that their candidate encourages illegal behavior. Not to mention that their size and location sometimes could pose a safety hazard with the roads as messed up as they are up here.

    Nobody listened. I’m so glad this woman is taking a stand, and that the Washington Post is talking about it.

    I thought a while back about trying to start a crusade and a grass roots thing where people pull up the signs and then take them back to the offenders with a receipt saying how much in fines they should have owed. But that would have required more time than I can devote to it.

36. Posted by Erin Doland - 12/16/2009

    @Elizabeth — According to Virginia law, political signs are legal before the election and on election day. They’re only illegal after the election (I think it’s like 36 or 48 hours later they become illegal).

37. Posted by Lori Paximadis - 12/16/2009

    My local alumni group participates in a huge city cleanup every spring. It is *amazing* the amount of stuff we pick up.

    I pick up random (nonsticky, nongross) trash and toss it into trashcans when I’m out and about, and on my beachcombing walks I bring along an extra bag to collect trash.

    I’ve always thought that it should be a requirement that candidates pick up their signs from public property within a week after the election, and that for every sign left after that, they lose a vote.

38. Posted by susan - 12/16/2009

    I applaud this woman!! And all others who take the time to clean up their neighborhoods. It makes a difference. We have a small group in a big city and we take down illegal fliers, stickers, remove graffiti, sweep and pick up trash. We educate and ask others to take care of the space in front of and near their buildings. It makes a big difference.

39. Posted by Malena - 12/16/2009

    You know when someone throws trash out the car window? I have a mental picture of me picking up the trash and tapping on their window and shame-shaming them. And if I’m lucky enough that they roll the window down, I toss it into their car. But I value my life too much.

40. Posted by Another Deb - 12/17/2009

    I have, in the recent past, called the phone number ON those signs and suggested that they buy real advertising space rather than peddle their services with litter. Of course then I get hung up on.

    I’ve done beach and highway cleanup for years, with students and with other groups. The annual coastal clean-ups back in the 1980′s produced hard data that supported ocean dumping legislation.

    It is always interesting to see what actually gets thrown out, washed up or blown in. Lots of inferences come to mind when the side of the road going into town is covered with empty liquor bottles and porn and the road going out of town is covered with lids from ice chests, fast foor containers and strings of casette tape. (It’s been some years)

    There’s a guy in town here who jogs a few miles daily on the city streets and finds a LOT of loose change. @ Chris2: If nothing else, I’ll be looking at tumbleweeds more carefully from now on!

41. Posted by Mary - 12/17/2009

    Around here the trouble is roadside shrines to accident victims. The balloons, poster boards, and teddy bears get out of control and distracting. I wish they’d be outlawed.

42. Posted by CC - 12/17/2009

    I’m a high school teacher and I’ve often been an Unclutterer in the past. As I walked through the halls in my former school I was always pulling down old posters and throwing them away. It’s not something I do often now since my current principal hates anything being on the walls.

43. Posted by Valerie Heck - 12/18/2009

    When I lived in my apartment I went around and picked up trash outside as exercise. I enjoyed cleaning up the area and making it safer for me to take walks.

44. Posted by Caroline - SOS - 12/18/2009

    Great Subject!

    When I was married out on a farm in Colorado, I assigned somebody to specifically take down the signs and balloons on the highway and dirt road after the wedding was over.

    When I returned from my honeymoon, I was HORRIFIED to see that the assigned person had not done what I had asked, and the rainsoaked signs and limp balloons were still there!

    Roadside signs are a pet peeve of mine.

Subscribe to this entry's comments