witnessing someone trashpick my trash...

[evident]

Just threw out an entire basement's worth of carpeting, and an old POS formica vanity top with faucet attached.

An old truck is rolling through my cul de sac now and going through my trash bags... went through and found my old sink and took the faucet... I'm watching from my office window
Not really complaining but it's kind of awkward... should I go out and say hi to him? Looks like he would mug me. I wonder if he would take my old struts that i replaced on a car this week. they are sitting in the garage but i forgot to take them out to the curb...

edit: now that i think of it i think my wife saw this dude swing by last week and pick up a tennis racket from one of my neighbors... definitely creepy that he stalks the neighborhood like this

 

[shortylickens]

pics?

 

[evident]

pics?

long gone now... but here's the huge pile of crap.

 

[shortylickens]

DUDE! That photo is smaller than my DICK!

 

[evident]

lol sorry! I edited it and reposted the pic.

No picture of whats left of the sink ... too lazy to go outside on this beautiful day right now.
Seriously if that faucet was worth keeping I woulda kept it and put it on craigslist. I don't even think it was made of metal. water would spray everywhere too. I sold an old faucet and stone sink from my previous house on craigslist for $120. was totally stoked.

 

[MongGrel]

I need to put some stuff out at the curb, I had some people swoop in and grab things in 5 minutes once.

I even feel nervous taking groceries inside as we are on a busy street and have told the wife not to leave the hatch up on the Mazda 3 up when bringing in groceries.

It's not even a bad area, have about 3 Pinellas CO Sheriffs live nearby, in a couple blocks, is just anyone can jump out of a car and grab things at the corner if they care to.

 

[lxskllr]

No telling what people would find valuable, even shitty old carpeting. There's been times I could have used some that, but not everything that's out there.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The sad part is that in lot of places that's actually illegal, but it should actually be encouraged. If someone can use it, it's better than it going to the landfill.

Every spring we get a "spring cleanup day" where they'll pickup larger pieces of garbage such as that kind of stuff but they forbid people from driving around and picking stuff up. They used to allow it though.

Sometimes if I want to get rid of big stuff like that but feel it might be useful to someone I just put it in front of the yard with a sign that says "free!" and it's usually gone fairly quick. Saves me from having to find someone who has a truck.

 

[skull]

Probably a scrap metal guy theres a bunch that drive around here on garbage night. The one I haven't seen in a while the name on his truck was junk drivin. This other guy has a crew with 4 trucks they built cages on the pickups and stack the stuff 15' right. I don't know how they do it but you see em rolling down the road with wash machines on the top. Its pretty sketchy I see him up at my scrap yard all the time. One time I was doing a furnace swap and didn't want to mess with taking the metal myself. I roll the furnace to the curb and come back out with some duct work some dude was already pulled over loading the furnace in his pickup.

The faucet could have been plastic with brass internal. Certainly not enough to be worth the aggravation but some guys bother.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I got rid of a server rack side panel as I had integrated the rack into my main setup and did not need the side panel anymore. I'm sure some scrap metal guy was happy to take that one. Haha. It was not outside very long until I saw someone had taken it.

 

[paperfist]

So that's where they get all the stuff they sell on ebay from!

 

[TwiceOver]

We can't leave stuff like that for pickup on the weekly day, we have to wait for a "city-wide cleanup" which happens late marchish. The scrappers are out like crazy for that week. Unfortunately the list of what they will take gets shorter every year.

 

[Crumpet]

Hell you throw stuff out im'ma see what I can use!

 

[evident]

Hell you throw stuff out im'ma see what I can use!

Lol if you want 20 year old carpet from a basement that was heavily used by 4 kids from the previous family that lived here please be my guest

 

[Crumpet]

Lol if you want 20 year old carpet from a basement that was heavily used by 4 kids from the previous family that lived here please be my guest

As someone who was once moved into council accommodation on the 23rd of December into a property with solid concrete floors and no carpets, let me assure you, some people could be very grateful for 20 year old heavily worn carpets.

One persons trash is another's treasure.

 

[SKORPI0]

I see pickup trucks doing the rounds the afternoon/night before thrash is picked up the next morning. Sometimes you'll see them full of appliances/furniture people left in their curbside.
At least it's found a way to be fixed/reused instead of ending in the landfill.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

DUDE! That photo is smaller than my DICK!

His picture was flaccid but your dick was erect--according to those in microbiology.

 

[Humpy]

We leave donations out once a month that are supposed to go to whatever the charity is that sends the truck around, maybe for homeless veterans, but get stolen all the time by gypsies who sell the stuff at flea markets. I caught a lady one night in the act and was going to go beat her ass, but when I saw she was a haggard old peasant I had some sort of feeling come over me that made me stop. Then her car wouldn't start so I helped her clean the corrosion off her battery cables so she could be on her way.

Stay safe out there.

 

[BoomerD]

In MOST cities, once you put it in the trash and on the curb, you give up control of it...it's no longer "YOURS."

Among other things, that's how cops can search your trash cans without getting a warrant.

 

[darkswordsman17]

In MOST cities, once you put it in the trash and on the curb, you give up control of it...it's no longer "YOURS."

Among other things, that's how cops can search your trash cans without getting a warrant.

I don't think anyone is debating the legality, just the weirdness of it.

I really can't fathom doing it for scrap, even with gas prices low and I think scrap prices are pretty high, they've got to be making barely pennies if any money at all. Are they getting some subsidy or something that helps them? Is it people not doing it for money?

 

[NetWareHead]

No telling what people would find valuable, even shitty old carpeting. There's been times I could have used some that, but not everything that's out there.

I find that old carpeting makes an excellent weed barrier when dropped between my garden rows. Even when the soil is muddy, the carpet gets wet and you dont sink into mud. I used to purchase bales upon bales of hay each year because it would biodegrade and disappear.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

As someone who was once moved into council accommodation on the 23rd of December into a property with solid concrete floors and no carpets, let me assure you, some people could be very grateful for 20 year old heavily worn carpets.

One persons trash is another's treasure.

This. That's good cat scratch'n carpet right there. A few bits of wood and some staples and you could turn that into $50 artisinal free range vegan scratch pads on ebay.

 

[NetWareHead]

My fiance and I once were driving home and as we passed through a neighborhood we spotted a wooden bench on the side of the road in front of someone's house. We both looked at one another and knew. All it needed was a coat of paint and some screws to secure a leg and it as solid as can be. Put it on our front porch, secured a couch cushion to it and its great.

As far as other scrap like this, I dismantle stuff regularly to extract useful metal. With a sawzall, some hand tools and an angle grinder for really stubborn items, you can break down alot of stuff and make some money. Found an old water heater on the side of the road that was from an age when the entire tank was made out of copper. Price for copper is over $2 a pound. Aluminum also gets you decent scrap price as well as lead and brass. Most iron/steel is not charged by the pound rather by the ton so there is not much incentive unless you have a good amount of it where it costs you more to dispose of it. I took 600 lbs of old cast iron sewer piping to the scrapyard once and only got about $25 for it. But if I had to rent a dumpster, it would have cost me more. Anyway, I'm happy to recycle and give stuff like this a chance to be reused.

 

[evident]

My fiance and I once were driving home and as we passed through a neighborhood we spotted a wooden bench on the side of the road in front of someone's house. We both looked at one another and knew. All it needed was a coat of paint and some screws to secure a leg and it as solid as can be. Put it on our front porch, secured a couch cushion to it and its great.

As far as other scrap like this, I dismantle stuff regularly to extract useful metal. With a sawzall, some hand tools and an angle grinder for really stubborn items, you can break down alot of stuff and make some money. Found an old water heater on the side of the road that was from an age when the entire tank was made out of copper. Price for copper is over $2 a pound. Aluminum also gets you decent scrap price as well as lead and brass. Most iron/steel is not charged by the pound rather by the ton so there is not much incentive unless you have a good amount of it where it costs you more to dispose of it. I took 600 lbs of old cast iron sewer piping to the scrapyard once and only got about $25 for it. But if I had to rent a dumpster, it would have cost me more. Anyway, I'm happy to recycle and give stuff like this a chance to be reused.

Oh believe me i've done my fair share of trash picking. We found an awesome outdoor table that we used for 6 years till I gave it to one of my movers. Also trash picked a really nice vacuum cleaner that was 100% functional and clean. The dude that comes by just looks very sketchy and makes me feel uneasy. His truck has a huge plywood fence contraption on the sides so he can stack stuff up 10 ft high.

Also happy to report that the trash ppl happily took all 1000 sq ft of my carpet with no complaints!

 

[Aikouka]

I don't care if someone picks through my trash, but I do care if they make a mess of it. It may not be "mine" to control anymore once it's on the curb, but it's still mine to clean up.