Nurse fined $200 for leaving free apples outside her house for neighbours

Neighborly kindness is often a case of having good manners, but sometimes, no matter how good your intentions are, people can take a gesture the wrong way.

Case in point, this nurse who was fined $200 for leaving free apples outside her house for her neighbors.

Lydia Farrell, 33, left the apples outside her home inviting her neighbors to help themselves after they came from a tree in her garden and she didn't want them to go to waste.

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However, after thinking that she'd done a kind, neighborly thing, she was shocked to receive a $200 (£150) fine from Ealing Council, in west London because of the apples.

Taking to Facebook to reveal news of her "good deed cone wrong", Farrell wrote: "Feeling disheartened..... the council has fined us £150 for 'fly-tipping' because we've been leaving free apples outside our house in cardboard boxes (because people were taking the pots!)

"A good deed unfortunately gone wrong."

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In an interview with Metro, she said: "[I feel] very disheartened. Especially when I have to walk past all the real fly-tipping every day at the end of my road. We'd been away for a few days and not only did we come home to that fine but also someone had forced entry into our back garden and broken our fence.

"So two real crimes committed by other people and I'm the only one who gets fined."

She added: "I just felt it was quite sad that the council would fine me for doing a good deed."

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After she made the incident public on Facebook, Ealing council has since withdrawn the fine and issued Lydia with an apology.

She later edited the original post to add: "Apple update - after reading through all my messages and speaking with the lovely @VanessaOnAir it seems I won't have to pay the fine! I'll keep sharing my apples but maybe fix them to my wall somehow next time. Thanks for everyone's support and kind words.

"And we now have some passion fruit growing!"