I'm done cleaning on the Miracle Mile

Some businesses, along the blocks of the Miracle Mile that I've been cleaning under the sponsorship of KAJO/KLDR, have been slacking off on their own litter cleaning. This shows that, if you do something for others for free, they will stop doing it themselves.  

Not everyone has done so.  Some have actually improved a bit, namely the Fruitdale Grange, which has lately begun renovating their landscaping, and last week cleaned up the bamboo and maple leaves along the north edge of their lot.  

       Then there is a certain restaurant, which has been so slovenly that I started calling police on them for leaving their boxes piled up within sight of passersby, where they could burn if a firebug took the notion, and attractive nuisance back in the corner of the fence that they share with another property.  Their employees also throw their butts everywhere, including the property next door.

An employee confronted me a while back about calling the cops, when I was shaking my head at their having moved their boxes to the front of their building, under their overhang where they would stay dry, burnable and even more accessible.  She said that the cop had been there 5 times and he said that it was okay to stack boxes if they were broken down and flattened.  I see no such allowance for storing such trash on the ground in our nuisance code.  

What became crystal clear to me on the day before Thanksgiving is that regular weekly cleaning does not work as a protest, even while wearing a tunic sign.  One becomes like Mom cleaning house or a servant.  

It was L'il Pantry who made me call it a day and an end, looking at the trash at one end of their lot.  I had noticed the trash on their lot increasing; this was the most butts I'd seen on this edge yet.  It was obvious that their workers never get to this edge of their lot, and apparently picked up little or nothing between my weekly visits.  

When I first started picking up their lot, I gave them a prize for “no old trash” on their property.  Perhaps the worker who liked to keep things clean had quit and no one has taken up the work, a common problem, which means that their owner does not care.  

I get the best reaction from a neighborhood when I clean an area occasionally rather than regularly.  Once a week is too often; people are willing to wait for it rather than do the work themselves.  It actually sets a bad example, implying that weekly is often enough, when litter cleaning needs to be done at least daily, several times a day at restaurants, bars, and convenience stores.  

So I am done with protest cleaning of any private property, and will end my weekly cleaning under the Caveman Bridge.  The City will continue to depend on me to clean it if I keep doing it.  I may picket that restaurant’s unsafe disorderly conduct and the city over their toleration of it.

I owe KAJO/KLDR for the two months or so left on their year of site sponsorship.  I give them credit for two days of cleaning an event of their choice, a $200 value.  This is a service, not a protest.