I haven't talked to anyone in the neighborhood about it. Although some families in the block are nice to us, I feel a certain animosity or rudeness on more of my neighbors because of my ethnicity. I am an Asian in a mostly black neighborhood and I have received my fair share of slurs since we moved here last year.

I have a good feeling that the throwing of trash has something to do with my ethnicity (it can't be coincidence if it only happens on the front of my house all the time) and I do hope that it doesn't get worse than that. Thank you for the note on the ppd website, I will file a report the next time something like this happens.

Sadly I went through this experience. The City procedures for fighting this are financially against you. You will get a hearing date
that will be scheduled only at normal working hours during the week. They do not have after hours or weekend hearings.
So you will be out your pay for that time. Also you have Transportation and parking costs.
All said and done as a first time offense you will probably be given a warning although the arrogant hearing officer will chastise you and try to make you pay anyway.
You will get absolutely no assistance from any politician. They have a hands off policy for sanitation tickets.

In future should this occur again. Call the local police precinct and ask to speak to the Sanitation officer. Have him/her come and go through the trash bag. Hopefully the litterer's name and address will be inside and the officer will not only give them a ticket for littering but also one for illegal dumping which is a stiffer fine.

It is a shame that those who cried most about discrimination should practice it themselves.
They say the best defense is an offense.
Do not hestiate to go to the local Church and present the facts to the pastor and the congregation. There might be some snickers, but overall you will gain the respect and support needed to prevent these slurs in future.
And possibly make some friends.

I have had two tickets revoked for the very same reason. It's very easy. The hearings are in a private office with a city staffer. Very casual. Just explain what happened.

shark, I actually paid for the ticket already as it happened several months ago. At first, I was really adamant about fighting it off but it took forever before they could schedule a hearing. It was several months before I got a schedule for a hearing and the hearing date fell on a time I was very busy with something so I just paid it off.

Since then, there have been 4 or 5 more incidents where someone would put a garbage bag in front of my house the day after trashday. It's as if they forgot to get it out on trashday and would just put it out the next day, only not in front of their house, but mine instead. This is why I think some people in our neighborhood might not like us -- because the trashbags would only be placed in front of our steps. I know it's not my next door neighbors (because they use a different type of trashbag) eliminating the possibility of an honest mistake of forgeting trashday.

And one more thing, I did mention before that we are the only one that practices recycling in our block. It might be possible that whoever is doing this noticed that and thought that since we have the time to sort our garbage, we could fix their trash as well.