If somebody tells you to have a nice day, it’s usually a good thing.

But when Garbage Guy says it — instead of issuing threats and cursing — to someone who has previously confronted him over rummaging in green bins for food waste, it’s a bad thing.

We reported in December that Garbage Guy’s four-year reign of terror in his Military Tr. neighbourhood finally appeared to be over.

He stopped plundering green bins put out to the curb and hijacking shopping carts to fill with garbage. And he was no longer leaving food scraps around his townhouse and in the hydro corridor behind it for raccoons and coyotes.

His stockpile of garbage and bottled urine in the hydro corridor disappeared, and his ghastly habit of smearing feces on the door handles of the homes and cars of people who stood up to him had also stopped.

It looked like he was getting help to overcome his mental health problems, to the vast relief of his neighbours.

All was well for nearly two happy months, until four carts from the local Food Basics store suddenly appeared last week along streets around his home, including one filled with takeout food trash.

The carts were a tipoff to John Slimkowich and other area residents that Garbage Guy was up to his old tricks, putting them on high alert for further shenanigans. Slimkowich said he caught him fishing food waste out of green bins put out for pickup on Oakmeadow Blvd. last Friday, and spoke to him about it.

“He’d usually get pretty aggressive if somebody told him to leave the green bins alone, but he just said, ‘Have a nice day,’ ” said Slimkowich.

“To us, it’s like we’re back to square one, even worse. Instead of getting better, he’s learning to play the game. He is incredibly cunning. He’s learned that the aggressive stuff gets him in trouble, so he just says have a nice day.”

City authorities finally decided to take the problem seriously last year, with police, public health and bylaw enforcement officials meeting to strategize on how to get him help and end his bizarre behaviour.

Trespass orders were issued to keep him away from Food Basics, a variety store in the same plaza, a school across from his townhouse complex, and even other local townhouse developments.

It worked, at least for a while. But his neighbours believe the intervention served as a learning process for Garbage Guy, on how to keep doing his thing without attracting so much attention.

Slimkowich said he has taken to dumping the food waste he collects down the side of an embankment that leads to a nearby creek, where he is less likely to be caught.

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It raises a question: What would any of us do if we had a similar neighbour?