I park mine in the alley behind the house. It's where they pick up the trash from. My son hates taking the trash out because it's so far. Also people will walk by and throw stuff out, or will empty stuff they don't want in their trash into ours. Nothing like finding nasty litterbox stuff in your trash.

My parents have a concrete walkway along the side of their house they leave there at. My brother has a small concrete pad behind his garage. He can walk into the garage and out the door at the back of the garage to access it.

In our previous home, the large garbage can was stored on a pad at the back of the house, but was knocked over and strewn about by nocturnal creatures fairly frequently. There is more wildlife in this area than in our old neighborhood, so we store our large can in the garage at this house. We also have twice weekly collection and in the 5 years we have been here, I only recall taking it outside because of smell once. Our garage does not have AC, but my husband works in there a lot and keeps a fan going most of the time. We do have an area on the side of the house where the street view is blocked by shrubs, we could store it there if it became a problem.

Why does it smell? Is all garbage is tied bags?

There was a thread about this several months ago. What it revealed is that we all have very different circumstances re: weather, animals, room, etc.

We have 1.5 acre. Ours is just pulled back from the street about 100 ft, in the front yard, but it's obscured from view by trees. It's near my garage for fairly easy access, sitting in gravel so the wind doesn't steal it.

In my previous home on 0.2 acre, I pulled it behind my 6ft cedar fence, as dictated by the covenants.

Clearly, we have no issue with animals or room here. The only issue is the occasional wind gust.

In the garage. Nocturnal critters mean we can't leave it outside. If I know something is going to be smelly, I time my cooking! Really! Tend to cook shrimp etc the night before pickup. Or, if it can't be helped, I might put it In a couple of ziploks and pop it in the freezer till pickup day.

In this weather, though, I don't worry about i...it freezes in the garbage can. Brr.

Ours is in the garage. It has a lid, and sometimes there is a smell when we open the can to add to it, but it doesn't stink up the garage at all. We bring it out to the curb the morning of pickup.

Our city went from twice-a-week to once-a-week trash pickup many years ago, and there was a big outrage about it. Once we made the change, I haven't heard one peep about suggesting we go back to twice a week (much less increasing our garbage rates to do so). I'm surprised at pickup twice a week!

We have a small area behind the fence to the side of our garage for our bins (we have three large wheeled containers here - for trash, recycling and yard trimmings). We put in a short fence behind them so the dogs can see us and know they don't have to bark when it is us and we don't have to worry about them getting out.

We have hinged lid containers and haven't had any issues with critters getting into the trash. Like this -

Mine is on the back patio, behind the garage and just a few steps from the back door. It is out of sight of the neighbors but I am thinking of building a little shed-like structure to hide them from the rest of my patio. I don't really have room in my 1 car garage for the cans although it would be much easier for me to get them to the curb on trash day from there. If I had room, that is where I would keep them.

A former neighbor of mine kept his alongside his garage, right on the property line in full view of my LR and DR windows. He wouldn't keep them in his garage "because they stink too much" -- many diapers. He did not have tight-fitting lids. Believe me, I couldn't open the windows in summer because of the stench! and the local raccoons found them very attractive as well, so I was picking dirty diapers out of my landscaping weekly.
Yeah, years later and I am still irritated at how inconsiderate these guys were.

We also have a hinge-lidded garbage can so even though we store our cans outside, we've never once had any trouble from nocturnal visitors. I've caught raccoon cubs wrestling in my pond at 3am and one year we had a mama raccoon start making her nest in our crawlspace (thankfully, we were able to persuade her to nest elsewhere before the cubs were born) but never once have they bothered our garbage so hinge-lidded cans really do deter that behavior.

We store our can just outside the side garage door in a "garbage paddock" I designed and my hubby built. It's a 3-sided enclosure with solid fencing to about 50" high with wire lattice above. It completely hides the cans from view from the street (CCR requirement, although it's not really enforced), shields my view of them from my den on that side of the house, and it is attractive, too.

I thought I had a photo of it but I don't. If you want to see it, I'll take a photo later and post it.

We used bungee cords to keep the lids securely closed on our outside garbage cans (which were kept in an area on the side of the house behind a fence -- a little trash enclosure). Now we live in an apartment and the trash chute is 20 steps away -- love it!!

In my old 1957 row house, the garbage can was sunk into the ground outside the kitchen door, I remember some houses in my 1950s neighborhood growing up with the same thing. It had a heavy hinged metal lid and a latch, but those raccoons are smart! And nothing deters them. I'd put the baby's diapers right at the top, and they just tossed them aside, so we did as our neighbors and kept the can in the garage in the alley, and moved it to the kitchen door on trash days. No, they would not pick up from the alley.

I'm glad to hear that the new big hinged cans are harder for those little bandits, because I suspect our town will have us switch to them, and they won't fit in the garage. I don't know if we'd be able to see one stored outside, to see if the critters have gotten in, unless we keep it on the front porch. Although, they did add an option for smaller recyling carts when many people in older homes found the big carts didn't fit in the garage, either.

I'm glad to hear that the new big hinged cans are harder for those little bandits, because I suspect our town will have us switch to them, and they won't fit in the garage

We had hinged-top cans and the raccoons had no problem opening them. Those are the ones we bungeed.

It's nice to know that we all park our trash bin in similar fashions. lol. I will find a good place to park it outside once the house is completed. Thank you all.