First Police Contact!

I knew being in an older RV that we’d be singled out, but I did not expect it to happen in the first month of our journey, before we even left town. Well this morning it happened, here’s the details.

We went to be bed around 1am this morning, thinking we’d sleep in. That did not happen. At 7:30am, we were awoken to the sound of someone banging on our door. Startled at the intrusion, I got up and went to the door. There stood the RV park owner and a local police officer. “This is odd,” I thought. I must have looked confused, standing there in a t-shirt and boxers with the sun just rising.

The officer told me he knew I had put chemicals and electronics in the trash. I agreed and asked what the problem was. He told me I wasn’t allowed to throw those things away. I said OK, and said I’d take them out. The owner then said she knew I had been there before and thrown things away twice. I didn’t argue, but was a little confused why she hadn’t said anything when we were there before. She then said I was paid up until today and that they wanted me to leave. I said fine. The officer asked for my name, address and phone number. I gave him the information and they left.

Now, at first, I was irate. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to throw away some of the things I had thrown away. They had mentioned that if the DNR had seen it, I would have gotten fined. I agreed to take care of it, but they still wanted us to leave. As the day went on, I got more angry. They had never asked if I threw anything away, and aside from admission, I don’t think they could have proven it in any way. But we were singled out for two reasons, one somewhat legitimate, and one downright offensive.

First, We had arrived two days before. No new RVs had arrived and none had left, so this happened two days after we arrived. So in all probability, it was likely us that had dumped it. Not a great leap of logic and understandable.

However, the part that really got to me was that we were singled out because we were living in an older RV. The owner was pretty bitchy to me and insistent that we leave. We never signed a contract, there was nothing posted around the dumpster, we hadn’t broken any rules. But she outright told us to leave. I could have argued, but it wasn’t worth my time.

We left by 8:15 after unhooking everything, drove around the building and took out the chemicals I had put in the dumpster. None of them were open, they were all in a box, so I simply picked up the box and threw it in our basement to deal with later. Not a big deal.

Now, I have a feeling we were the first RV they went to. I don’t think they would have started randomly knocking on RV doors at 7:30 in the morning and asking who had thrown the stuff away. They came directly to us, never asked us if we had done it, but told us we had. No question at any time.

The big thing that pisses me off though is that she said we had done this twice before when we were there. I honestly don’t remember what we threw away before, there might have been electronics in it, I think I threw away an old VCR, but there were not chemicals. Had they said something to us then, I’d have corrected it and not done it again. Simple consideration instead of outright hostile conflict.

Instead, we wasted the cop’s time, pissed me off, and accomplished nothing. We won’t be going back there, though in all honesty, she didn’t say I could come back, just that they wanted me to leave. Maybe next year when we are back in town and have a paint job we can come back here, but I doubt it. Its cheap and close to family, but not really worth the hassle of being the jerk just to be a jerk.