YANKEE INGENUITY

An outstanding Idea

I have a friend who is president of his homeowner's association in a Washington, D.C. suburb. They were having a terrible problem with litter near some of his association's homes. The reason according to my friend is that six very large, luxurious new houses are being built right next to their community.

The trash was coming from the Mexican laborers working at the construction sites and included bags from McDonald's, Burger King and 7-11, plus coffee cups, napkins, cigarette butts, coke cans, empty bottles, etc.

He went to see the site supervisor and even the general contractor, politely urging them to get their workers not to litter the neighborhood, to no avail. He called the city, county, and police and got no help there either.

So here's what his community did. They organized about twenty folks, named themselves the "Inner Neighborhood Services" group, and arranged to go out at lunch time and "police" the trash themselves. It is what they did while picking up the trash that is so hilarious. They bought navy blue baseball caps and had the initials "INS" embroidered in gold on the caps. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what they hoped people might, mistakenly, think the letters really stand for.

After the Inner Neighborhood Services group's first lunchtime pickup detail, with all of them wearing their caps and some carrying cameras; 46 out of the total of 68 construction workers did not show up for work the next morning-- and haven't come back yet. It has been ten days now.

The General Contractor is madder than hell, but can't say anything publicly because he could be busted for hiring illegal aliens. The homeowner's association can't be accused of impersonating federal personnel, because they have the official name of the group recorded in their homeowner association minutes along with a notation about the vote to approve formation of the new subcommittee--and besides, they informed the real INS in advance of their plans and the INS said basically, "Have at it"!


Proviede by a friend of HSM