DEAR VICE - CRACKHEADS ARE WEARING MY CLOTHES

Dear Vice,
So I had a clean out and filled a couple of bin liners with old clothes that I never wear and will never wear again. I carried the bags to the local charity shop only to find it closed. There were numerous posters in the window screaming at me not to leave bags outside the shop because they would get ripped open by crackheads and flung across the pavement. Signs reading DONATE DON'T DUMP warned that anyone caught leaving bags would face a £20,000 fine and a jail sentence for flytipping. However, having ferried these heavy sacks over 20 blocks to the shop, NO WAY was I about to carry them home again. So, sheepishly, I dropped them by the side entrance and skulked away. Doing a good deed had ended up making me a criminal. I made the civic-minded effort to take the bags to Oxfam, but now I'm breaking the law on CCTV, I'm bankrupt and I'm going to jail.  I didn't sleep that night. Racked by shame, paranoia and guilt, I went back to the scene of the crime early the next morning. It looked like this...

It's only after I got home and looked at the photo that I saw how, next to the messy detritus, someone had written in chalk: I HATE MY CLOTHES. No joke.

Now, I don't know if the global economic downturn has anything to do with it - even the crackheads are feeling the credit crunch - but this sight is a saddeningly familiar for many Londoners, with rubbish bags across the city being regularly ransacked.

The bins outside my own apartment block are ripped open and rifled through at least twice a week by my own neighbourhood addicts. The raggy debris of their raids is left strewn across the street. Below's a photo of the two leading offenders. I told them to fuck off but they don't give a shit. The police didn't give a shit either when I called them. What am I supposed to do? Go American Psycho on them? 

Who is throwing away all these clothes? Are the crackheads selling them? And who buys apparel from a crackhead? All I know is that is that the guy begging by the ATM is wearing my old shoes and it's weirding me out.

TOM ANON
London

Comments

[Concerned]

Why can't they just install a drop-off box or something outside the shop?

[craic]

god. that would freak me out big time. maybe we should put giant mouse traps next to oxfam drop offs...

You should call his post: I am a total idiot

[maybe]

maybe if you didn't dress so emo, and didn't copy other peoples shoes, strangers wouldn't write mean things about your outfits on the pavements of london...

[erm]

"You should call his post: I am a total idiot" - you should call yourself a boring quim.

[Mark]

The author appears to be Nathan Barley. A cunt.

[Spookytim's bars]

SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD"

I see bin bags here, Piiiles of shitty clothes,
scab-faced wrecks and mad toothless ho's,
and I think to myself, what a crapulous world.

The colours of my wardrobe, all scattered in the street,
my old cast off reeboks, on some skagster-zombie's feet,
I see blank a faced hag, who's rummaging my sack,
looking for a cardigan to sellllll foooor crack....

I see Oxfam's sign, so I dump my load,
and make my way back home along, that filthy rotten road
and I think to myselffffffffffff,
whaaaaaaat a crapppulousssssssssss......
Wooooooooorrrlllddddddd (ooooohhhhh yeeeaaahhhhhhhh)

[What?]

So, hold on, you LEFT some STUFF outside a shop and your were SURPRISED WHEN SOMEONE TOOK IT? Next time I recommend locking the STUFF YOU DON'T ACTUALLY WANT in a FUCKING SAFE. As well as your career as a journalist.

[NB]

Why is the author straining as hard as he can to sound american? References to 'blocks' and 'ATM's - in a context that clearly revolves around London - don't make one sound like an NY Urbanite, they make one sound like pathetic wannabe cool boy that nobody likes.

Futures, monkey muff,
Nathan Barley

[demon warior]

Scroll down a few posts and you will see Vice promoting bin raiding. And now this. Fucking hypocrites.

[منتدى كوره]

thank you .

[AVERAGE JOE]

Are you a guy? All I see is a pile of garish neon bullshit all over the street. Even the crackheads didn't seem to take much, more rip open the bags open before realising it's full of the authors nu-rave faggotry from last season and fucking left it there.

The guy begging by the ca$h machine is probably the ugly one from Trash Fashion re-living the glory days.

[fuck me]

whats with all the hateful little cunts on here today? how is saying we should make more use of out of date food in any way contradicting saying its a bit creepy when you see crack addicts wearing your clothes?

[derrrrrr]

Yeah that's really hypocritical of them to advocate bin raiding and then print a letter by some guy who's weirded out by bums wearing his clothing.

[DOUGAL]

I have found some of my best clothes outside the donation box of my local salvation army.

I don't smoke crack.

[chris]

The more I read about London, the more I think it's gotta be the shittiest city in the industrialized world

[Taeil]

This reminds me of a blog that was called "Is it a bum or a hipster?" And all it had was pictures of various homeless dudes and hipsters that looked like homeless dudes and you had to guess which one was which.

[PK]

"Blocks"?

In London?

[jonomac]

if the people who are rifling thru the bags for clothes are that in need of them, why should they be classed any differently to them being sold for the needy from within the shop?

[AG]

The other day I was walking down Old Street, and there were two hipster kids rifling through the Oxfam bins by the fire station. Lol. What a low.

'20 blocks'???

there are no 'blocks' in london. this is not new york. you are not american.

you are also boring, that's what makes it worse. i wanted photos of crackheads in your clothes. all i got was a whiny moan.

[Annegret]

Priceless!

[gloria]

Ummm...maybe he IS american They do live in London. And by the way there's about a million english twats in New York still complaining about the "que" they had to stand in that morning for their fucking tea, so it swings both ways...

[aamo]

the writer needs to grow up,

[Reda]

The chap who wrote this could easily be yank, bloody millions of 'em in London.

Also, we do use the word "block" when referring to an apartment block, and ATM when referring to an ATM [which are distinct to cashpoints, are actually branded as ATMs, and charge £1.50 a pop, which traditional cashpoints do not].

He is a dick though. Rather a tramp wore my old clothes than froze to death.