I was shocked to see my neighbors cleaning out their garage on Sunday. No, not Hot Young Anthony and Sweet Young Allison. The creepy people who talk very loudly out in their driveway at 3 a.m. even though their driveway is right outside my bedroom. They also have a large weed growing out of their roof right above the front door. I don't know why, but that weed makes me want to hurt someone.
I hate it when the woman comes out to chat with me when I'm working in my yard and she blows her fricking cigarette smoke in my direction and even though I'm outdoors the smoke still gets caught in my throat and I gag.
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They carried stuff from their garage to the curb for hours. I've never seen so much crap in my life. People stopped to root through the stuff to see if they could find anything good. I don't think they did because almost all of it was still there when Willy Dunne Wooters went home that night.
I'm amazed the garbage men picked up that much stuff.
So here's today's WHAT? WEDNESDAY question: Will you look through someone's castoff stuff to see if there's anything you can use?
I do not mean dumpster diving. I do not mean shopping at a yard sale. I mean stuff sitting at the curb, waiting for the garbage men. I swear, people in vans and trucks were coming by to look at the treasure trove of garbage.
I will not go through someone's castoff stuff. I don't even want to look at my own castoff stuff.
I suggested to Willy Dunne Wooters (I was joking) that we should sneak over after dark and look at some of the neighbor's junk, but I was afraid that if we opened a box a rat would jump out. (I just realized that "neighbor's junk" is a double entendre. God, I crack myself up sometimes, but not now.)
As always, I look forward to your answers.
Infinities of love, but not to those people with the weed growing out of their roof unless it turns out to be smokeable and I do not mean a regular cigarette,
Janie Junebug
No, but we put out a couch on the curb for trash pick up, and someone took all the cushions. They left a note, "Please leave the rest for me, I will pick up later." I canceled the special pick up, and the dude never came back. So someone is out there with a bunch of cushions and no couch. The cushion-less couch added to the 'hood ambience that my street projects for a few more days until it was picked up.
ReplyDeleteI see a lot of furniture at the curb in my neighborhood. When I replaced my front door, I put out the old door and someone took it.
DeleteFunny you should ask: one of the smaller towns near me has an annual "we take anything" trash day, and the night before, there are people strolling about as if it's a street carnival, looking through everyone's garbage for treasure. There are those who are even bold enough to open bags that are obviously filled with real trash (like kitchen gunk), so people will mark certain bags "garbage" to ensure those bags are untouched. It's a sight to see.
ReplyDeleteWe did get a perfectly functional clickety-clack lawnmower from it once, about twenty years ago, on our only foray into trash day.
When The Hurricane was in prep school, a lot of the wealthy students who traveled long distances to get there didn't bring many clothes. They shopped throughout the school year and then left behind their wardrobes in trash bags. I guess it wasn't worth it to ship the clothes home. The Hurricane would go through the bags and find clothes she could wear. Once she got a J. Crew plaid wool skirt. We knew it was $40 because the tag was still on it. That was different from going through garbage, though. I thought The Hurricane was quite resourceful.
DeleteHiiiii! I'm always amazed at what people will take from my garbage. A few weeks ago I finally rolled a decrepit, broken, torn office chair out to the curb and it was GONE within a couple of hours. If they can make use of that thing, God love 'em, but I just can't even imagine what they did with it.
ReplyDeleteThat weed would drive me absolutely insane. That's what you sneak out to do---climb on their roof & pull it. They probably wouldn't even notice.
I would love to climb a ladder and cut down that weed, but A. I'd probably fall and break my back again, and B. the woman is in and out of the house all night long. Apparently she doesn't smoke inside and doesn't sleep. I think she takes naps during the day.
DeleteNope, nope, I would not. However, my mom has and will, even when we are in the car together. Are your neighbors perhaps moving?
ReplyDeleteMoving? Shelly, I hadn't thought of that. You've given me hope for the future.
DeleteI will not look through anyone's trash! People do here though and carry off just about anything and leave your garbage can a mess.
ReplyDeletePeople have thrown their garbage in my garbage can. Friday is yard refuse pick-up day. One time I put out a can of leaves and sticks and stuff, and someone put a bag of garbage on top of it. The trash men didn't take it because of the trash!
DeleteI've gotten some really good stuff from other people's castoffs. Mostly furniture. "Free" is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI love it when I see toilets at the curb. I want to find people to sit on them so I can take pictures.
DeleteNO. I hate it. It's a sickness.
ReplyDeleteMy BIL roots through the trash to retrieve things I've discarded. Recently I held my desk calculator in front of his face. "This is broken! It will not multiply or subtract. Leave it in the trash!" He took it out and it is in the precarious pile of trash consuming the basement.
YOUR basement? That's going too far. He must stop, and you can tell him I said so.
DeleteI've done it before. Especially when I lived in an apartment during my single days. But the only thing I ever found out of all of them was a cool WWII book. But collectors, antique shops and the like will comb through a pile of junk looking for treasures. You never know when someone will stop by an antique store looking for a rusty used hypodermic needle and plunger.
ReplyDeleteI know there are people who go through the trash of celebrities. Or they used to. Maybe the celebs guard their garbage now.
DeleteThis Mama doesn't dig through castoff stuff! In my neighborhood in Cincinnati, though, every Sunday night, when the garbage was put out, you could count on some dude in a dilapidated pick up truck to make his rounds and pick through all of our curbside garbage. Maybe he got some scrap metal, and turned it in for cash. And maybe he refurbished the busted stuff. All I know was that it was weird.
ReplyDeleteIf I put out any metal, I know some guy in a pickup truck will take it away.
DeleteThat is gross and I would never do it! I am not a keeper of things, even my own things. I am always cleaning out and dropping off items at the local Gooodwill store, so I would never take other people's cast offs. Even if it looked like something good, I would resist the urge.
ReplyDeleteStay strong, Fancy Ranci.
DeleteIf someone had a piece of furniture sitting on the curb and it was in decent condition, I'd pick it up, paint it, and sell it for a million dollars.
ReplyDelete-andi
And you are the one person who could do that.
DeleteWill I look through someone's castoff stuff to see if there's anything you can use? Are you seriously asking me this? You are? Well, in that case I should say and will say and am saying that it all depends on the neighbors. When my hump happy neighbors exposes his crap (did that sound scary?), I run like Forrest. But when my zillionaire neighbor carries his stuff to the curb, I put on my crap proof outit and dive. I just so love his cast aside diamonds....
ReplyDeleteIf I had a zillionaire neighbor, then I'd consider checking out his garbage. But no one in my neighborhood is a zillionaire.
DeleteHmm I don't think I would do it. I'd be scared of bugs, rats, spiders and germs, eek! Hopefully they're moving, though. . . it would be worth having your neighbor's junk out on the curb. :P
ReplyDeleteThis afternoon they were outside with several piles of white boxes (?). Hard to tell what they were. Oh, Lord, please take them away and send me another Anthony and Allison. I realized that they're probably not moving, though, because the man has lived in that house his entire life. It looks as crappy as he does.
DeleteMt sister-in-law was driving to work on day when a woman was pushing a 1905 player piano to the curb for the garbage man. She rented a truck and brought it home. She even got two dozen rolls of music still in their boxes.
ReplyDeleteNow, that I'd go for. What a find!
DeleteHere on base everyone does that on Sunday nights. You put stuff out and if anyone wants it it's fair game. However if no one takes it a special trash guy comes out on Monday. It's mostly for big items and it can be pretty fun. Like a giant base wide garage sale for free.
ReplyDeleteThat's nice because you can trust the people putting out the stuff.
DeleteI wouldn't now, but that's because I'm employed and don't have kids. When I was in college I would. It's not dissimilar from a garage sale, except this way, you're not paying for other people's trash. This shocks you so, perhaps because you know the state of the people throwing it out?
ReplyDeleteIt definitely bothers me because of the people in question. They yard is always a mess, and I can smell their cigarette smoke in my house if I open the windows. And there's that weed growing out of the roof. If I put out something I don't need, it's clean and odor free.
DeleteThey have spring clean up week in the town that I live in. You put your stuff on the edge of your lawn and people go around in trucks picking up people's stuff before the garbage man comes.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird. I don't want other people's old stuff either.
Thanks for your support.
Heather
I have my own stuff. I like it. If I don't like it, then I get rid of it. I don't want someone else's stuff that smells like cigarette smoke and probably interacted with rats.
Delete