She Thought She Could Get Away
She thought there would be no bad consequences for what she thought of as a good deed. She was just leaving some apples by her house for anyone to take.
There’s nothing wrong or illegal with that, right? Well, apparently, the local authorities had a different opinion. And she had to pay a fine for what she thought was an act of goodwill.
Gardening
Are you into gardening? Some people do it in their spare time, and if they have neighbors, they are usually happy to share the food they grow with them.
Think zucchinis, peppers, tomatoes… it’s a good way of creating a good relationship or bond among the neighbors. Plus, it’s always better to give away what you’re not going to use.
Spare Apples
And that’s what London nurse Lydia Farrell thought. She had an apple tree in her yard, and it grew so many apples that Lydia and her partner couldn’t use or eat all of them.
So she thought that the best thing she could do was share them with the neighbors, placing them at her door for anyone to pick some. But the Ealing council, West London, had other plans for her.
Lydia’s Garden
Lydia had gotten into gardening a few years back. She had a few fruit trees in her yard: not only this apple tree, but she also had pears and cherries.
She also grew vegetables: mostly carrots, potatoes, and leeks. She had tried to grow tomatoes, but, as everyone knows, the UK doesn’t have much sun time, which made it difficult to get a decent harvest.
Too Many Vegetables
So, for the most part, she had been sticking to her carrots, potatoes, leeks, pears, cherries, and pears. And by far and large, potatoes and apples were the most proliferous in her garden.
So Lydia and her partner Nathan cooked many homemade dishes with potatoes, and when they had some left, they gave them to their friends. They would do the same thing with the other vegetables every time they had some spare. But there was a problem.
Too Many Apples
There are only so many things that you can do with apples. Sure, you can eat them straight from the tree, make some apple sauce, and, if you have the time and the equipment, maybe make cider.
But this still leaves you with a lot of spare apples. Even their friends didn’t know what to do with all the apples Lydia and Nathan gave away. So the couple had to come up with a solution.
Apples For Free
Lydia decided to place some apples at their door inside a basket or a box so that everyone who passed by their house could get some if they pleased.
She didn’t expect that the local council wouldn’t take this as a gesture of goodwill and that she would have to face legal consequences for it.
“You Need A License, Mate”
There’s a running joke among some circles on the Internet about how stupid some British laws are. The theme or pun seems to be that Brits are weirdly obsessed with bureaucratic processes and require a license for the silliest things.
Can you think of any other country where you need a license to have a TV inside your property? This is just one of them, but there are some other incomprehensible laws.
British Laws
For example, since 1939, it has been against the law to carry a plank of wood along a pavement. There is also a law that bans “handling a salmon in suspicious circumstances.”
It’s also illegal to let your dog mate with any dog belonging to the royal family. What Lydia did wasn’t against any of those laws, but apparently, it violated a different regulation from the local council.
$200!
The council saw Lydia’s box of apples not as a way to reward her neighbors with the fruits of her garden but as leaving trash and litter on the streets.
For this, one morning, Lydia woke up, went to check her mail, and found a letter from the council informing her that she had to pay a fine of £150, that is, about $200.
She Was Disheartened
She was really bummed by this. Had she really done something wrong? The apples were placed on the stairs by her door. Technically, they weren’t even on the street
And even if that were so, they were just some apples with a sign saying “FREE EATING APPLES!”. It was a present for her neighbors, not something she was leaving there to rot. So she decided to do something.
She Told Her Story On Facebook
She shared her story and disappointment with the council’s actions on her Facebook page. This is what she said:
“Feeling disheartened… the council has fined us £150 for “fly-tipping” because we’ve been leaving free apples outside our house in cardboard boxes (because people were taking the pots!) A good deed unfortunately gone wrong.”
Fly-Tipping
For the record, “fly-tipping” is defined as “the illegal deposit of any waste onto land that does not have a license to accept it.” The definition of “waste” and whether it applies to Lydia’s apples may be problematic.
But when one knows Lydia’s intentions, it’s easy to see that this is not akin to just throwing some spoiled apples on the street; she was just giving them away. And this wouldn’t be the only disappointment Lydia had to face.
To Add Insult To Injury
“Just very disheartened. Especially when I have to walk past all the real fly-tipping every day at the end of my road. We’d been away for a few days, and not only did we come home to that fine, but also someone had forced entry into our back garden and broken our fence.”
“So two real crimes committed by other people, and I’m the only one who gets fined. I just felt it was quite sad that the council would fine me for doing a good deed,” she said. But she would get some good news a few days later.
It Went Viral
Her Facebook post went viral just a few hours after she posted it. People were raving about the ridiculousness of the council’s fine. Soon, the council withdrew the fine and apologized to Lydia.
She updated her Facebook post informing about it and added: “I’ll keep sharing my apples but maybe fix them to my wall somehow next time. And we now have some passion fruit growing!”