My wife and I are preparing to move this weekend and in doing so have amassed a ton of things we're throwing out - everything from old DirecTV receivers to an old (and broken) Elliptical. We called the city for a refuse pickup and put all of the stuff out at the end of our driveway. Now the stuff we put out was well bagged, and none of it food/bio - it was all dry, etc. There was quite a bit of it.

We live in a nice neighborhood - middle class at least. And once the morning passed, the rummaging began. Every single work truck of Mexicans ended up stopping, blocking our driveway, and going through our stuff. This happened numerous times - to the point where I called the police. By this time, more than one group had taken at least half of this "garbage", just driving by, and throwing it in the back of their work trucks.

A cop came by and said "there's nothing I can do about it because they aren't going through a garbage recepticle - if they were, I could get them for scavenging."

The problem is this. What if I left that stuff out for GoodWill, or for a Friend to pick up? How did these Mexicans know that the Elliptical was broken?

The answer is they couldn't, and they didn't care. Even if I left this for a service other than refuse, they would have taken it anyway.

To me there is a big problem with this. I talked with a few friends yesterday, and each of them had some story of having things stolen (and yes, all by Mexicans) - ranging from stuff that was on the side of the house that was just set out overnight while they did something in the garage to a friend who put something in his driveway for a friend to pick up.

This is just plain ridiculous. The question is what can be done? I sort of understand the cops' disposition in this matter, but as I said, what if this was left for Goodwill? Even though it wasn't, would it be stealing then?

Plus we all know they take this stuff and often try to resell it. The Elliptical would appear to work just fine to somebody save the terrible sound it makes (refernce to broken bearings that cannot be replaced). So somebody is probably going to get ripped off...

Anyway, this really upset us. We didn't like having people going through our well-packed trash in a nice neighborhood, and wonder in the future how to prevent this sort of thig - and if there is any "charge" here in AZ that can be enforced for such actions/behavior? (I don't have much faith that the cop really wanted to try and help out with the situation)