Once a year, Salt Lake County drops off large dumpsters in neighborhoods as part of their Area Clean-up program. They remain in the neighborhood for about a day or so and then they're picked up and the contents are taken to the county landfill.

A couple days ago, the large dumpsters appeared around our neighborhood. As soon as I noticed the large dumpster across the street from our house, I began to notice slow-moving pickup trucks, sometimes with flatbed trailers, moving through our neighborhood. Some of the trucks and trailers were full of miscellaneous items. These vehicles definitely didn't belong to people from our neighborhood. I didn't know if they were people from other areas who were just looking for dumpsters to dump their trash in or if they were hoping to scavenge items from the dumpsters.

A few hours later, a neighbor reported that a Canondale road bicycle had been stolen from out of his open garage. I was surprised by this because he lives in a fairly secluded culdesac. Then, someone else mentioned another neighbor who had something stolen from out of their garage.

I continued to see the pickup trucks driving past my house. The postcard the county sent out a couple weeks before the dumpsters were dropped off indicated that the postcards could be used to show authorization to use the dumpster. It was obvious the county didn't want other people freeloading and dumping their crap into dumpsters that were there for our use. I had my camera camera on-hand in case I saw someone throwing stuff into our dumpster, but I never saw anyone stop.

On the side of the dumpster, there was a printed warning against scavenging saying that it was illegal. So, either way, someone from out of our neighborhood that was doing anything with these dumpsters was doing something against the law.

On Facebook, neighbors were saying they were seeing people taking items from the dumpsters and loading them on trucks.

The morning before the dumpsters were reclaimed by the county and taken away, I saw a police vehicle with its lights flashing behind a truck filled with items from a nearby dumpster. I was glad someone got caught.

Another one of my neighbors talked to me later and said he took some time to do some surveilance of the neighborhood with his camera and what he saw indicated there was a network of coordinated people both looking for items they could take out of dumpsters and driving around, slowly, scoping the neighborhood for houses with open garages. This neighbor followed a couple of vehicles, snapping photos of license plates, and even followed one vehicle to a home in West Valley City where he saw a garage that appeared to be filled with "loot."

My neighbor reported all he saw to the police and turned over some photographs to them as well. The police talked to people they caught in the act in the neighborhood, but nobody was apparently arrested, maybe only cited.

The next thing my neighbor told me is the icing on the cake: The individuals he observed were not speaking English, or not speaking English very well, but communicated mainly in Spanish and appeared to be natives of a Central or South American country. As he interacted with the police as they were talking to one of the people they caught, my neighbor said they also didn't have any identification to show the police.

This strongly suggests these individuals, working as an organized network, were illegal aliens.

I spoke with a family member who told me, yes, this happens regularly in their area as well and they knew someone else who, while moving items from their backyard to a dumpster, a large aluminum extension ladder was taken from out of their open garage.

Now, I'm not going to paint ignorant, broad strokes here and say that all or even many of the people in the country illegally are involved in criminal behavior like this, but based on what my neighbor saw and what I've been able to ascertain in my limited investigation, this is a powerful indication of what we have brought on ourselves by tolerating illegal immigration.

The problems presented here have several facets. Not only are citizens being robbed by these illegal aliens, but law enforcement appears to either be restricted in what it can do when these individuals are caught, or they choose not to do anything. This may be because a prosecuting attorney isn't going to press charges. I don't know.

One thing is clear: If you receive notice that dumpsters are going to be delivered to your neighborhood, get prepared to be on the lookout for crimes being committed. Tell your neighbors to keep their garages closed and to be extra vigilant. If you see vehicles driving through your neighborhood that you don't recognize, especially if you see them a couple of times, get a picture of their vehicle. If you see a crime being committed, call the police immediately.