Donna Freedman recently posted a fun article about rescuing various goods from dumpster oblivion. A horde of readers commented on everything from the riches to be had to the ick factor to ecological correctness. The impulse for discovering hidden treasures in the trash is strong!
Here in the neighborhood, we have what can best be called a “beside the dumpster exchange.” Got something you wanna get rid of but it’s too big to easily haul to the Goodwill? Drag it out to the alley and let it sit by the dumpster. By nightfall, it’ll be gone.
Especially if it contains metal: metal scavengers patrol the alleys here and will take anything you leave out for them.
But it’s not just down-at-the-heels guys trying to crank a few bucks to buy some more crank. The neighbors take the stuff.
I know which neighbor took the barbecue I left out one time, because it was easy to track the trail left down by the wheels as he dragged it to his yard. It needed a HUGE cleaning job…but if a person was willing to take a lot of time and plow through a gigantic mess, it was a pretty nice ’cue. Later, I found a cool framed print beside a dumpster, still in its packaging.
It’s become a kind of ad hoc Freecycle: We don’t want it—please take it! You don’t want it—we’ll take it.
For years, my neighbors across the street had a yard sale business. About every three or four months, they would drag out piles and piles and piles of stuff. Put a couple of signs at the main drags, and hordes of folks from the surrounding barrios and slums would descend on our street. Each sale brought in hundreds of under-the-table dollars.
They built their stock in two ways: by haunting yard sales, where they haggled prices way, way down; and by scavenging in the alleys. They found some pretty nice stuff in the alleys, some of which they sold for decent prices.
When you visited their home, you discovered they’d scored quite a few nifty decor items. Under the back patio cover, they created very pleasant outdoor room with yard-sale furniture and an old TV set—she told me it didn’t matter if rain got on the stuff, because they didn’t pay anything for it.
Moments of Fame
Squirrelers hosts this week’s Festival of Frugality, and kindly includes Funny’s squib on signs of life in the local real estate market.
We have bulk pickup that we can call for with our garbage service. I feel bad because at least half the time I call, the truck comes and the item is already gone.
The strangest thing I had happen with scavengers was some cans of driveway sealer (about the same size as paint cans). They did the crack sealing and left the buckets behind. I put them out, and then a couple hours later wheeled the garbage and recycling containers down to the curb, and the containers had vanished. Don’t ask me why anybody would have wanted those!
Thanks for the link, ma’am.
At my daughter’s previous apartment complex people would leave unwanted items in a specific area when they moved. It was referred to by some as “the mall,” i.e., a place where you could browse for something you needed.
Stumbled upon your blog a few days ago. I am enjoying your take on life! Our neighborhood, being somewhat country with no sidewalks, employs “free take” signs at the end of driveways. It’s fun to shop from your car!
Our town has institutionalized this; at the place we can go to to drop off, well, all sorts of trash and recyclables, they have a shed where you can leave stuff others might want. I have both scored and left some great stuff there. The only trouble with the place (philosophically speaking) is that it’s not accessible except by driving to it, so those who might most need the free stuff probably can’t get it. Also, my sense is it does attract some hoarders, which isn’t really a problem it creates but is one it may be making a bit worse at the margins in some cases. Perhaps this is offset by an anti-hoarding ethic it provokes in others (passing stuff along), I don’t know.
@ MoneyBeagle: We get bulk pickup about once every three or four months. If you want something picked up outside the schedule, you have to pay extra…which why we get so much illegal dumping, for which the city will fine the owner of the property that backs onto the dumped-upon strip. Someone’s alley is a lot closer than the desert. 😉
If the cans went out on the front curb, I wonder if some civic-minded stroller thought they were trash and just picked them up and carried them home to his own garbage can? We should have a contest to dream up what a person could do with an empty asphalt sealer can!
@ bogart: Around here, a sure way to get rid of anything is to set it out on the street with a big cheerful FREE! sign. A lot of people have figured out that this is the way to get rid of the unsalable junk from a yard sale, without having to load it into the truck and schlep it to Goodwill. People will pick up practically anything short of a dead skunk if you mark it as FREE.