Trash Picking

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Usually in our neighborhood folks leave unwanted usable stuff curbside.  This morning I noticed 3 bags of toys - mostly large action figures  and a huge collection of duplos - in a neighbor's garbage can. So many bags of toys that the lid was up. I rescued an entire collection of large Marvel superhero action figures, Star Wars Action figures, and Toy Story Characters - including Jesse, her horse, Buzzlightyear and Woody. Decided to add the large legos (Duplos) to our collection for when the kiddos visit, and walked the other toys over to a local park picnic table and put a "free sign" on them. I guess it all worked out, still baffles me that perfectly good toys were trashed. And when I say perfectly good, these toys appeared to be brand new.

 

Any good ground scores (or garbage scores) in your neigbhorhood? I swear, if I was a hoarder I would go nuts collecting all the really good free stuff people leave on their curbs. I typically just list my freebies on Nextdoor.com or freecycle. 

FYI, a private citizen will not likely go to jail for simply rummaging through the trash of another person. However, if she does anything that the state she lives in finds unlawful during the course of her rummaging, she could face criminal charges, serious penalties, and even jail time.

...the more you know...

We have a monthly or bi-monthly pick up in the hills around here and some of the furniture is quite nice. 

 

 

If I was more enterprising, I would have put these toys on eBay. I didn't rummage so much as just pick up the 3 large bags. The dump truck came along about 10 min later. Glad I saved the Toys. I think they left them out the day before along with some other stuff for Salvation Army or another donation truck. But clearly they didn't want the toys and the neighbors just trashed them. 

 

after getting kicked out of a bob dylan show and stumbling home a few miles, we found a very nice Lane wood coffee table for my neighbor.

I'm not picking up trash that for people caught drunk driving.

Some neighbours had a pair of above-ground pool ladders out on their lawn last week.  I thought they would be nice to use as stable platforms for tree-trimming.

Alas,  I was on the way to work,  and some other person got them.

Geez, what took you so long, Stu? 

 

(((hoarders))

One of our neighbors (blocks away) has outdoor cats that always get knocked up, and every few months there are kittens all over their yard for a bit of time. My wife sees two of the kittens in the litter and they are siamese,while the others were your standard cat. Since these things just wander the neighbors yard, and wander in the road, my wife decides her and my daughter are going to rangle up a siamese cat. Sure enough they capture one and bring it home. That cat loves my wife, but it is holy hell on paws, and terrorizes the dog and other cats in the house, the ones we didn't  steal. So sometimes, and I am hear to testify, that ground score can come back and bite cha

Ha,  I worked with a  cat rescue group to trap spay/neuter a few of the crazy cat lady's cats in our neigbhorhood. We released them back into the hood after they were fixed after they recovered in my garage.  It was that or the other neighbors were threatening  to call animal control and then all of the cats would have been taken away. Crazy cat lady  has serious cat hoarding issues,   at least the cats aren't  breeding anymore. 

friend of mine refineshes furniture for a living...she is extremely talented...id say an easy quarter of her inventory ,on any given day, is from curbside....great profit margin....we re constantly on look out, as she will pay us to load and unload....and if its a real "score" , share in the profits, as she is also very fair and generous businesswoman...

 

now...who s got my buzz lightyear???

We have dudes that cruz the neighborhood the night before trash day. I'm pretty confident they know a lot of day before trash day routes, and probably make a good living doing it. I tore apart an old dryer and put it to the curb, and I told my wife it wouldn't last an hour. About five minutes later I'm helping some one legged oldtimer load it up into his truck. 

Recently put out a pair of very large, very old, non-working speakers. They were gone by morning. I live about a mile from the U of O and anything I put out is gone very quickly. It's an important part of how things get recycled around here - there are many spokes in the wheel.

Yep, they're doing a great service keeping this stuff out of the landfills.

 

We have some student apartments nearby, many are foreign grad students. They move out and put their entire households on the curb. The worst is when they drag out a mattress or couch and leave it to rot in the rain. For the most part it works for everyone though. there was a problem a few years back with folks going thru the recycling cans and pulling bottles and cans out - made a racket. That stopped when the local deposit exchange closed. 

I did stop at one attractive-looking pile of curbside junque a few weeks back.  Got a decent leaf-rake,  a Hickory sledge-handle,  but the cool thing was a framed piece of handicraft / artwork. It's all needlepoint with (5)  panels in a long skinny frame. 

Each of the three center panels  is some Vietnam - era plane or helicopter, about 6" square. "OH-6 Cayuse",  "U-21 Ute",  and  "UH-1 Huey".  On either side are 6" x 8" panels that say "Master Army Aviator" and "US Army Aviation",  The whole contraption is nicely matted & framed,  signed on the back by someone's wife w/ 'Happy Birthday' inscription.  

Never dreamt I would ever own such a thing.  Seems like someone passed away,  and the kids put all the old stuff out to the curb.

My dad once picked a painting out of the trash. He thought my mom would like to reuse the frame, or if she didn't want it he had planned to use the frame for kindling wood to start the fireplace.  Well mom recognized the artist and it was an Emmett Fritz original.  They contacted a gallery and sold it for two grand.  

Antique Road Show....tonite...live from the philzone...

Dunno if you call it needlepoint or embroidery,  however some lady really spent a lot of time & effort on that item.  Might be a nice item for someone who was in there back then.  I guess I'll send it to Ken Babbs ?  He's the only guy I can think of.

My buddy set out 2 five gallon paint cans full of litter box leavings on bulk trash night. Sure enough, both were gone by morning 

The stuff left on the curb in Sunnyvale is mind-boggling 

even though I don't have a use for them at this time I picked up two large double pane window frames with perfect wooden  louvered shutters Sunday. I wouldn't doubt that they cost 2500 bucks. I just set out a pretty nice futon in good condition the same day

The-Free-Box-Telluride-Colorado-3.jpg

Perhaps one can be started near you

With the new Star wars movie coming out in december you will be able to cash in on the Star Wars figures. Solid pull there Nanc, nice work.

Our neighbors were moving out a few months back and kept putting all this curb gold out a few days before trash day. I swooped in and pillaged the pile on a few occasions. This past week i sold my wheel barrow hoard from a few years worth of wheel barrow salvaging and repairing. I still have about five nice cast iron umbrella base stand things, not sure why people consider such things trash..

 

>>>.who s got my buzz lightyear???

very hard to find in working order or without missing parts, good luck