Street Recycling
When my wife and I bought our house from our landlord, part of the agreement was everything he left in the house "conveyed." Usually when you buy a house that just means appliances, but he still had some bookshelves plus a lot of assorted items in the basement--old housewares, some hardware, tools, mirrors, lamps, even a tiny guitar speaker and a fedora. We didn't want most of it, plus we had some stuff each of us brought into the house when we moved in that we didn't need anymore. Robin said we should call someone to come pick up the junk. I thought we could just put it out on the curb and people would take stuff. She didn't believe me, but went along with me. We put out the stuff on Friday afternoon. I sat out on the stoop with a beer to watch. Within 10 minutes the first people took some stuff. By dinner time Sunday, everything was gone.
My neighborhood is a model for recycling. Some of it is silly, like people putting lamps out that don't work when they could walk over to Frager's and get a new socket for $3.00. I've gotten several lamps from those too lazy to fix the lamps themselves. On any given weekend, in addition to the occasional discarded IKEA furniture (it doesn't take long for DC incomes to outgrow cheap Swedish furniture) boxes are put on stoops with housewares, books, and the assorted essentials of DC life, coffee cups emblazoned with an organization logo or former politician's name and empty binders (Romney's women found someplace else to go).
Some stuff languishes on the sidewalk for days. Any furniture that has potential for cat pee or semen stains doesn't move until DC Public Works is called to pick it up. Any CD that is put out on the street is usually not worth listening to, even for free. On the other hand, bookshelves and storage containers go FAST, as people need someplace for all their books and binders.
I've liked some of the books and magazines I've found. When we had our dog Maxie, walks on Independence Avenue on weekends usually bore fruit at one house that would clear out a shelve each week. Though I'm not a chick lit guy, Candace Bushnell's Four Blondes was a guilty pleasure. I've found more high brow stuff too, nonfiction, literature, and the like. One day the boxes included a National Geographic from 1950 that included pictures of Miami, Florida and the University there where my father graduated in 1950, a great present. Some finds are of a different sort: on the street where I work, a mix of books in a box last week included assorted elementary school math textbooks from the late 60s and 70s and a book She-Male from the 1960s. I'd be interested see the stuff that guy kept.
A side hobby of mine is buying and selling items from ebay. One day I found what was evidently the last discards of things from someone moving out of a house. Among the assorted stuff spanning decades was a box of invitations to one of Reagan's 1984 inaugural balls. I grabbed a few, thinking there are enough Reagan worshipers still out there to give it a try. I wish I had grabbed the box. Each sold for $5.00.
The best recycling ever was years ago, when I lived in Kent. Ohio. The whole town would have what was essentially a trash exchange every May, after the hordes of students at KSU left for the summer. People would leave their crap they didn't want out on the street and the city would pick up anything still left after a week of dedicated perusals. Some stuff was trash, but there were some great finds to be had if you were dedicated. My friend Wendy and I would prowl the streets in her big old Galaxy her husband found for her at a junkyard, with her German Shepherd in the backseat.
One morning during trash exchange week, I placed in the front yard a couch and matching chair next to it that my former housemate left behind when she and her husband moved to Florida. Wendy came by and we prowled the city, to see what people left out. One year I found a fussbal table which I foolishly gave away when I left town. Anyway, when we returned, there was a couch and matching chair in my front yard in the exact same places I left them, but a DIFFERENT matching couch and chair. Someone had driven around, run across a matching set, then found the set I put out and replaced them. Recycling squared.
My neighborhood is a model for recycling. Some of it is silly, like people putting lamps out that don't work when they could walk over to Frager's and get a new socket for $3.00. I've gotten several lamps from those too lazy to fix the lamps themselves. On any given weekend, in addition to the occasional discarded IKEA furniture (it doesn't take long for DC incomes to outgrow cheap Swedish furniture) boxes are put on stoops with housewares, books, and the assorted essentials of DC life, coffee cups emblazoned with an organization logo or former politician's name and empty binders (Romney's women found someplace else to go).
Some stuff languishes on the sidewalk for days. Any furniture that has potential for cat pee or semen stains doesn't move until DC Public Works is called to pick it up. Any CD that is put out on the street is usually not worth listening to, even for free. On the other hand, bookshelves and storage containers go FAST, as people need someplace for all their books and binders.
I've liked some of the books and magazines I've found. When we had our dog Maxie, walks on Independence Avenue on weekends usually bore fruit at one house that would clear out a shelve each week. Though I'm not a chick lit guy, Candace Bushnell's Four Blondes was a guilty pleasure. I've found more high brow stuff too, nonfiction, literature, and the like. One day the boxes included a National Geographic from 1950 that included pictures of Miami, Florida and the University there where my father graduated in 1950, a great present. Some finds are of a different sort: on the street where I work, a mix of books in a box last week included assorted elementary school math textbooks from the late 60s and 70s and a book She-Male from the 1960s. I'd be interested see the stuff that guy kept.
A side hobby of mine is buying and selling items from ebay. One day I found what was evidently the last discards of things from someone moving out of a house. Among the assorted stuff spanning decades was a box of invitations to one of Reagan's 1984 inaugural balls. I grabbed a few, thinking there are enough Reagan worshipers still out there to give it a try. I wish I had grabbed the box. Each sold for $5.00.
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| Reagan Inaugural Ball Invitation from 1984. Too late, they're all gone. |
One morning during trash exchange week, I placed in the front yard a couch and matching chair next to it that my former housemate left behind when she and her husband moved to Florida. Wendy came by and we prowled the city, to see what people left out. One year I found a fussbal table which I foolishly gave away when I left town. Anyway, when we returned, there was a couch and matching chair in my front yard in the exact same places I left them, but a DIFFERENT matching couch and chair. Someone had driven around, run across a matching set, then found the set I put out and replaced them. Recycling squared.
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