I much prefer to be left alone in a “trashy neighborhood” (which is quite a claim based on some plastic cans being outside a few hours early) than be micromanaged by my neighbors.

It almost always starts benign: keep the bins out of sight except for trash days. But sooner or later some power-hungry busybody takes over and the next thing you know, citations are flying left and right.

It's absolutely a slippery slope. Once you've established the mechanism to harass people over trash cans, next it's the color of their house, the shape of their windows, where they park their cars on their own property, if they have a scrap wood pile, and on-and-on. And then before you know it, you have the Nextdoor-powered housing gestapo.