I used to keep my brown City of Manteca garbage cart in the alley. No more.

That’s thanks to a new neighbor.

I went out on Sunday to bring the cart into my yard so I could “pack it” with bagged garbage from the week I keep in a larger cart.

This might strike you as a bit insane but let me explain. I now have four people in my household, a very young great grandson and his parents.

I have a 64-gallon cart and really have no desire to “upgrade” to the 96-gallon cart.

When I bought the house I had a 32-gallon cart I put out every two weeks. But then five years ago a granddaughter’s ex-boyfriend needed a place to stay. I soon discovered someone in their 20s with dining habits that were much different than mine such as a tendency to spend a lot of take home pay on fast food required a large cart.

I switched out one housemate for three. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier. Most nights after I get home in the wee hours of the morning, I get a chance to hold and “talk” with Wyatt after his dad has changed his diapers.

More people, translates into more garbage.

In the past three months I have resorted to packing the garbage cart to maximize space. By starting at the bottom with compact and heavy items — think plastic bags from a diaper pail filled with soiled diapers — I can fit everything in.

And that includes tossing in trash I had set aside in the garage such as Styrofoam when I have space to cram it in.

This past week it looked as if as much as a third of the cart could be filled with items I “stockpiled” to dispose of properly.

But when I went to bring the cart into the yard to pack it, there were two big — and heavy — plastic bags of garbage in it.

At first I thought they might have not fallen out when the city solid waste worker tipped the cart the previous Tuesday.

But when I looked into the top of the first bag I had what might best be called an “Alice’s Restaurant” moment.

For right there, right on the top of the garbage piled into my cart was a bunch of junk mail with the address and name of the recipient on it.

It goes without saying if you do an un-neighborly thing you might not want to leave behind a smoking gun.

I was irked on a number of levels. First, I was paying for the garbage service and not them. I also was worried I might actually have garbage that I would not be able to fit into the cart although.

I admit I did harbor the thought of looking up the address and placing the garbage bags on their front door step. It turned out I was able to get our garbage and the neighbor’s garbage in the cart and have the lid sit flat.

After I placed the filled cart back in the alley, I proceeded to pay the addressee a visit.

I was going to be slightly flippant when they answered the door. I thought I’d say, “Excuse me, I’m your neighbor, and it appears your mail got left at my house by mistake. I apologize for the Chef Boyarde spaghetti sauce splattered across them but whoever dropped them by didn’t realize there were empty cans soiled with messy sauce in the garbage bag.”

No one answered the door. I guess I was fortunate because you never know if some self-entitled person you confront regardless of how pleasant you are might fly off the handle.

That’s what happened to me one time when a couple of young people walking down the alley when I was working in the backyard a few years back tossed glass beer bottles over the fence just barely missing my dog.

I was able to get out the back gate with the two beer bottles in my hand when they were about 40 feet further down the alley. Now I admit I had an irritated tone in my voice when I called out to them and said, “Hey, what do you think you’re doing with the beer bottles?”

Both turned around. One of them decided to speak up as he gave me the universal sign that tells the world you are an uncouth moron while telling me to, “F - - - off, I’ll throw my f - - - ing beer bottles where I want to throw them including your f - - - ing yard.”

Back to the folks with the junk mail they tossed with their garbage into my garbage can. I went around to the back of their home, which is a rental, and noticed there was a green cart and blue cart in the alley. I peeked through their fence and could not see a brown cart in their fairly compact backyard. It could have been in the garage or it could have been on the side of their house.

There was also a third possibility. They could have just moved into the house and the junk mail belonged to a previous tenant. I wasn’t too sure how that was possible as the city’s finance department would probably have caught that when the water was transferred to another name given solid waste collection is mandatory in Manteca.

But then I remembered being told by someone who lived near Doxey Park how years ago they kept finding additional garbage in their brown cart after setting it out curbside the night before. Several other neighbors kept finding extra garbage in their carts as well. It turned out there was a rental on the street where a family of six lived. They had opted to have a 32-gallon cart to save money. They got rid of extra garbage by stuffing it a nearby cart, often to the point the lid wouldn’t lay flat.

It is clear that those responsible for dumping unadulterated garbage and trash throughout the city obviously can transport it. And often that includes large items such as furniture and old water heaters. They are clearly too cheap to pay tipping fees at the Lovelace Transfer Station just north of Manteca or they are too lazy to drive that far.

Or they are like two beer swilling jerks passing through the alley and they don’t care and have complete disregard for others.

The city is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to people like that regardless of how they structure a community-wide cleanup program.

Perhaps they could wed people’s outrage about those trashing Manteca and redirect it by harnessing widespread technology that is in place today.

It would be great to have the city establish a reward program via a municipal ordinance. They could offer a $500 reward for video footage from security cameras or other evidence that leads to the issuance of a citation and subsequent administrative law conviction of anyone caught trashing Manteca.

The fine could be $1,000 — $500 to cover the reward and $500 to cover city costs.

The city could advertise and promote such a program through utility bills and even with “anti-littering” street signs at perennial hot spots.

With a little luck it will discourage people from breaking the law by being lazy, disrespectful, and cheap. But even if it has minimal impact it would still be nice to occasionally snare those trashing Manteca and make them pay for it.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com