One Man's Junk is another Man's.........

One Man's Junk is another Man's.........

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Sheepshanks

32,757 posts

119 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Soov535 said:
guindilias said:
My boss earns £100k a year and pulled a bike out of a skip at the local dump for his 5yo daughter. Apparently it was "Fine once I gave it a clean and pumped the tyres up" - so he gave it to her for her birthday.biggrin
hehe

Although to be fair my son has a nearly new bike I bought from the side of the road for £20. He loves it.
My wealthy sister-in-law lives in London and says it's common to see skips full of expensive kids stuff when people are moving out - presumably emigrating. She got one of those £1000 pram systems and it looked like it'd never been used.


Nieghbour of mine didn't know how to get rid of a pink corner bath he'd removed. Went within an hour of putting it in the garden.

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Lady F discovered my large stash of old-scho0l p0rn magazines when we were clearing out the attic. Hadn't accessed them in years, so they were lingering at the back, behind years' worth of other junk.

Left outside the front gate with a variety of other stuff, for people to take.

They were the first thing to go. I had thoughtfully put them in an old rucksack, so that the next keeper could be subtle about it when returning home. Took minutes. Some gent wandered past, opened the rucksack, looked delighted and scuttled off with the whole lot.

I was sad to lose them, despite the advent of broadband. It felt like losing old friends.

Some random bondage stuff went quickly too. Remnants of an ex-GF or two. Thought it would be funny to put it out too. Watching people's reactions to it, and then watching them hurriedly take it, was priceless.

beko1987

1,636 posts

134 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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I regularly pick up vacuum cleaners from the side of the road/dumped in the little communal car parks in our estate, take them home, clean the filters and sell them for £20. The last few weeks my 9 month old son needs a walk in the pram to send him to sleep (teething), so 'I'll do that love... look what I found etc'

Our Ikea BESTA tv stand came from the side of the road with a 'free, please take' sign. Has a few scratches, but many more now thanks to my 4 year old daughter, so free was ideal!

Our neighbors were struggling to fit their 2 old sofa's in their car (moaning about 2 trips to the tip). Nothing wrong with them, just DFS were coming the next day with new ones. 30 seconds later they were in our garden, I put out utterly shagged existing sofa's on facebook as 'free to collect', they went in 20 minutes, we have nice new tidier sofa's for free, ready for 2 kids to grow up all over them and trash them

Our 50" 'dumb' tv was being thrown out by a rich friend of my girlfriends as the sound went on it. I grabbed it with ideas of a cheap argos soundbar in my head, all it needed was a factory reset (common toshiba issue apparently). Existing TV went in the loft just in case, and, 8 months later when my daughter put a scratch in the corner of the screen, only a mild telling off was given, compared to the apocalyptic rage my stepbrother went into when his loveable* son at 1.5 years old pickled up a hammer that had been left lying around and re-arranged the screen on their £1.3k sony LED tv!

But, when I changed the exhausts on our cars, and brake discs, and my mates brake discs I left it all outside the gate with a sign saying free, and even posted on facebook incase any of the loveable scrap liking rogues saw it, nothing, had to cut the exhausts up and do a tip run the week after. Granted this was when scrap went on it's arse last year, but still!

It's why I hate going to the tip, so many Dysons and other stuff that I just know work fine, but our council has a 'no chance son' rule. Was 3 seconds too late to intercept a woman dumping a beautiful change table system (I google'd it afterwards, £250 worth of maxi-cosi) when the lad was 2 weeks old, the tip guy got there first and I just had to watch as he helped her lob it in the wood skip. A wheel had fallen off FFS, take the other 3 off and it would have been fine!

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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We actually leave stuff for people to take quite a lot. The trouble is in London, people barely want old stuff, really.

For example, I have a whole garden worth of granite paving from the new house - basically stuff like you find on the pavements of the city, but for a garden so different sizes. Builder doesn't want it. No one wants it. About 80m2 worth of useful paving that I am replacing with lawn. I hate to chuck it. Am going to try Freecycle and see if anyone wants it.


Timmy40

12,915 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Harry Flashman said:
We actually leave stuff for people to take quite a lot. The trouble is in London, people barely want old stuff, really.

For example, I have a whole garden worth of granite paving from the new house - basically stuff like you find on the pavements of the city, but for a garden so different sizes. Builder doesn't want it. No one wants it. About 80m2 worth of useful paving that I am replacing with lawn. I hate to chuck it. Am going to try Freecycle and see if anyone wants it.
Blimey. I'll have it. Just need to work out a way to get it. Which I suppose is the rub!

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Timmy40 said:
Blimey. I'll have it. Just need to work out a way to get it. Which I suppose is the rub!
It's stacked in the garden - I'd love you to have it! Once we're moved in, come to town for some beers and dinner, stay over, drive it back (you'll need a van)?

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Want the rest of my old p0rn too? The stuff that was too dark for the normal punters to take?

Timmy40

12,915 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Harry Flashman said:
Want the rest of my old p0rn too? The stuff that was too dark for the normal punters to take?
Yes please, to all of that, marble slabs, beer, whacko porn.

How thick are the slabs? How many are there? We've just had 20sqm of limestone floor delivererd and that came in 4 pallet packs....each one weighed just over a ton!

May need a BIG van.

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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They look to be 30mm thick, same as the new limestone being laid for our patio. Are you happy to wait until after October? Won't be redoing the garden until then, once house is done. Will have builders dig up the slabs and stack them. I'll take some pics when I next get on site.

Timmy40

12,915 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Harry Flashman said:
They look to be 30mm thick, same as the new limestone being laid for our patio. Are you happy to wait until after October? Won't be redoing the garden until then, once house is done. Will have builders dig up the slabs and stack them. I'll take some pics when I next get on site.
Yes suits me. I'm a tad busy myself this month currently got tilers/sparkies/chippies/painters and stone mason all fully engaged on our house. Then Sept landscaping like you. So when it quiets down I'll get a van and pop down, it sounds like several trips at least.

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Good excuse for autumn beers Tim - nice one! Send me an e-mail nearer the time, and I'll have the guys dig it all up, and tell you how much of it there really is.

Timmy40

12,915 posts

198 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Harry Flashman said:
Good excuse for autumn beers Tim - nice one! Send me an e-mail nearer the time, and I'll have the guys dig it all up, and tell you how much of it there really is.
Will do. There's going to be a brief window of opportunity between the new house being built and the wife going broody....again.

ferrisbueller

Original Poster:

29,327 posts

227 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Harry Flashman said:
Want the rest of my old p0rn too? The stuff that was too dark for the normal punters to take?
rofl

battered

4,088 posts

147 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Only on PH would someone need to get a van to collect a load of stone and a sackload of top quality vintage grumble mags.

Harry Flashman

19,352 posts

242 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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PH wins again.

Tim isn't just anyone, though. He's a championship level deviant.

Jasandjules

69,889 posts

229 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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battered said:
Only on PH would someone need to get a van to collect a load of stone and a sackload of top quality vintage grumble mags.
Clearly you've never used freecycle.. though generally they would ask you to deliver it.........

ETA - oh and in the spirit of the thread - a friend had a new washing machine so the old one had to go. Online auction site had no takers.. She put it outside with free.. No takers. I told her to stick a large £30 ONO on it - within a few hours it had been lifted.... Saved a trip to the tip and something going into landfill for no good reason.

ferrisbueller

Original Poster:

29,327 posts

227 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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Jasandjules said:
Clearly you've never used freecycle.. though generally they would ask you to deliver it.........

ETA - oh and in the spirit of the thread - a friend had a new washing machine so the old one had to go. Online auction site had no takers.. She put it outside with free.. No takers. I told her to stick a large £30 ONO on it - within a few hours it had been lifted.... Saved a trip to the tip and something going into landfill for no good reason.
Excellent psychology there.

If people think they're getting a bargain then they can't resist.

98elise

26,589 posts

161 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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snotrag said:
Once had the entire back axle of my Dad's Isuzu pick up lifted from end of the driveway.

Wouldn't have been a problem except for the fact we were ten feet away under the car replacing the leaf springs with the intention of refitting said axle shortly afterwards.

Of course they were lovable transit tipper driving "do you like dags" rogues. To be sure we thought it was scrap! Etc...
I lost the axle of my Opel Manta GTE in the 1980's in a similar scenario. The car was on the drive with the back in the air with the axle on the garden ready to be fixed.

When we were replacing my mums bathroom the 40 year old blue 1960's bathroom suite was taken from the drive over night. We were expecting a hard job getting it to the tip, but by morning there was no trace of the bathroom smile

grumpy52

5,581 posts

166 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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My brother in law spotted a brand new still in its box pump for a swimming pool in a skip while out walking his dog . Hefted it home on his shoulder as he had delayed building his plunge pool because of the cost of a pump .
A family friend was a dustman for London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and most of his household furnishings were from his round .

guindilias

5,245 posts

120 months

Thursday 28th July 2016
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My mum dumped a load of broken children's toys into a skip this morning (has been having an extension done).
I asked just to make sure she hadn't dumped anything valuable "No, just old Fisher Price stuff".
Went out to have a look - 3 bin bags full, vanished in full daylight, from a skip in her garden, while she was in the house with three cars parked in the drive.
Useful Wombles, it left a good bit more room in the skip.
They also took a blood-stained single mattress (my blood, bust my head open one night while drunk and staying at hers overnight, then fell asleep) and a fuel tank from a wartime generator, that must have weighed all of a Kg at most, and was covered in dents.
Hurrah for our travelling friends!
Recycling at it's finest!