Rant: Shopping Carts littering the streets/alleys

[Sue]

I didn’t want to hijack another thread that mentioned this, so thought I’d start my own. I am amazed at the amount of shopping carts that I see all over West Seattle, nowhere near the stores that they belong to. I was taught that shopping carts do not go off the property of the store – except when you might have to wheel it a distance to your car … and then return the cart when you’re done. I used to live on Fauntleroy near Dawson, and several times a week I would find shopping carts in the alley from QFC, Safeway, RiteAid and even Thriftway, which was a mile away. I had the phone numbers of those stores in my cell phone so I could call and tell them where to find their carts, and they’d send trucks to pick them up.

I complained about this once on here, and a day later someone figured out where I lived and actually created a tall shopping cart sculpture directly behind my car in the alley. (I don’t live there anymore, nor do I own a car anymore, so don’t bother repeating it, whoever you may have been.)

Seeing these carts all over makes West Seattle look like a slum. When I moved recently, I actually had to initial a paragraph in my lease that said that I was not permitted to bring shopping carts from stores and leave them on the rental property. Seriously? Who has to tell adults not to do this? Well, apparently we do, but we shouldn’t have to.

I know that not everyone can carry heavy bags home; I’m one of those people. That’s why they sell rolling carts at places like Junction True Value and other stores. They make tote bags with wheels too. Buy one and use it. Or don’t buy more than you can carry for the distance you’re going. It’s really simple. But most importantly, respect the property of those stores, respect the employees that have to take time from their duties to travel all over town looking for carts and picking them up, respect the people whose property you’re littering with these carts, and have some respect for and pride in your neighborhood.

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[trickycoolj]

Huh usually stores want those back they’re really expensive per cart. I used to live by Northgate Target and the students that lived in my building took their stuff home in them. I stopped at the customer service desk in target and they got them fairly quickly.

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[hammerhead]

Well where I live the homeless use them to lug their crap around and camp out. They don’t have respect for anyone or thing.

The carts are EVERY where.

I know in Las Vegas they have some magnetic thing on them and you couldn’t remove the carts from the parking lot.

I will say kinda scary some one did that to you. yikes.

Granted there are some lazy people who don’t have cars and can’t carry the stuff they bought on the bus, so the cart works great to get them to their house and walk down the street and dump the carts.

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[JanS]

Thanks, Sue. We have someone who periodically brings a cart back to our bldg. and leaves it sitting by the front steps. It’s sometimes been left there for more than a week. It does make it look like a slum, and is not needed. The store is across the street for craps sake.

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[kayo]

I see them up and down Delridge and Barton in the Westwood Village vicinity. Sometimes in clumps of 3-4 or more. I agree it is an eyesore. Not sure what to do about it. Given that eastern West Seattle is a food desert and many people have to walk, I can see why this happens. Maybe if all of us who care just keep calling in the carts when we see them the stores will at last make an effort to remove them.

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[Bonnie]

I was just speaking to my Mom yesterday about shopping carts. She has been having seizures so she can’t drive. She has to walk to the grocery store and has no way to get her groceries home so she took a shopping cart and walked them the five blocks home. (she doesn’t live in West Seattle) She said she’ll return it. I have decided to get her a cart for Christmas so she can put her groceries in to bring home instead of steal a shopping cart.

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[quesera]

This is indeed a problem. If someone insists that they need to walk the cart all of the way home, they can surely walk it back, and not dump it on the parking strip. I see them all the time at bus stops. If I was a Metro driver, I would tell them that next time I saw them unloading a cart and planning to leave it at the stop, I would be driving right on by and leaving them there. Carts everywhere definitely creates a ghetto look that says “go ahead and trash the neighborhood, no one cares.” Isn’t this theft? Why don’t people get in trouble?

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[gmabetty]

Early last week I went to Walgreens in High Point and they had 1 cart! Clerk said all were gone. None were in the parking lot. Don’t know why they did away with the wheel locks. I have both a metal cart and a bag cart, stores usually don’t want you to use bag carts in-store, too easy to shop lift. Don’t blame them there. I know everybody in this neighborhood aren’t weak or disabled, a number could return them. Its ridiculous. We are not allowed to bring them to our building and park them. This cart situation has gotten out of control everywhere. I’ve even seen Target carts on 35th!

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[j]

This reminds me of a news story that ran this summer.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Police-beautify-Federal-Way-one-shopping-cart-at-a-time-221571101.html?mobile=y

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[JoB]

bonnie..

they make great walkers with seats and baskets that might come in handy for your mom …

i know i do a lot better when i have something to hang onto

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[B-squared]

Those carts are expensive. Perhaps it will come to stores needing to charge a deposit that is returned to the renter when the cart is returned. something like $5. make it steep enough to encourage the person to return it, or incentive enough for others to collect them and return them for the deposit.

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[Sue]

B-squared, I know some stores back in NY had a deposit on carts – they were all chained together, and you needed to insert a quarter to get one unchained. Then you needed to return it to get the quarter back, instead of just leaving them in the parking lot. I know it helped keep them out of parking spaces.

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[gmabetty]

A deposit would be good. In the beginning they were a store courtesy but now that courtesy is so abused. Leaving them in the parking lot is not so much the issue, better than taking them home.

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[JoB]

gmabetty

a store courtesy that allows you to purchase more than you can comfortably carry :)

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[gmabetty]

Do they have a right to ask “are you driving or walking”?

I have friends who use them to walk around stores and they don’t bring them home. Maybe walk to car with them.

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[newnative]

I laugh because I used to be mistaken for an employee when I returned my cart to the pen. Really, rich, lazy women would shout, Oh! Here you are! And I would take their shopping carts because they wouldn’t walk the six feet.

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[leamk]

When I was running my graffiti removal business (currenly on hiatus due to my truck dying),I contacted managers of all of the major stores whose shopping carts I would see in White Center/W. Seattle. I offered to collect the carts and return them for a very reasonable/negotiable fee (I personally cannot stand the sight of them and thought it would be a win-win situation) and I received ZERO response.

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[2 Much Whine]

Southern Italy is generally not a technologically advanced place but they do have one thing that seems to work quite well. It’s been mentioned on previous posts as something they have “back east.” Carts are chained together. Put a Euro in a little slot and it pushes the chain out. Simple as that. EVERYONE returns their cart to get the Euro back. If they are foolish enough to be so lazy as to not return the cart, someone else will do it for them. If people are willing to go around collecting old aluminum cans for a couple cents I’m pretty sure they’d gladly return a shopping cart for a buck. It’s a pretty simple system. I’m not sure why we’re not smart enough to do it here.

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[squareeyes]

One day last year I came to home find a mini-shopping cart shoved down into the top of a 3-1/2′ shrub in my front yard. Nice. The cart had no store label on it so I checked several stores around the Alaska and Morgan Junctions to see if any of them had carts in that particular color. Nope. I gave up and put it back on the parking strip for someone else to grab, and it was gone in very short order. Weeks after that I was in PetCo where I realized it was one of theirs. I would have been happy to return it, had it been tagged. I’m over a mile away from PetCo so it was taken a fair distance…

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[squareeyes]

Try to take a cart out of Marshall’s. It’s got some sort of mechanism that locks the wheels when you try to take it out the door. I must have bought something large because I recall that was inconvenient at the time, and I wasn’t going to leave my purchases just sitting there for the taking while I fetch the car.

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