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I don't know what I'd do. It would depend. I've lived in apartment complexes where people would come by from time to time, obviously hard on their luck. Fishing out aluminum cans and plastic bottles to recycle. That doesn't bother me much. Once my husband came in the back door to tell me a young woman was going through the dumpster, looking for baby clothes. I was appalled and took a bag of outgrown clothes out to her. Sometimes people are just really in a bad place, and if they show up once or twice, I probably wouldn't do anything unless they bothered people or made a mess.
When we moved from California to Illinois, we rented a dumpster twice to get rid of junk. Oh my GOSH, people (mostly men) showed up several times a day and jumped right in, often without asking! I didn't like that at all.
The bulk trash I put at my curb rarely lasts long. A pile of lumber and a ceiling fan motor were gone in hours. I figure once it's out at the curb, it is open to free-range grazing.
However the people who have stopped to pick through my bulk trash have never disturbed me, they are always quiet, they never leave a mess, and I have never felt threatened by them. If I did, I would call the cops; you should do likewise. Also very good advice about shredding. I am on my second cross-cut shredder. I wore the first one out since I shred anything with my name and/or address on it.
Isn't it weird what people will take? One person's trash I guess truly is another's treasure. I put a dead plant out there the other day and when I came back to the same spot 5 minutes later to do my recycling the dead plant was gone! I didn't even have it in a pot - I had it in a plastic garbage bag! And I mean that thing was dead. I'm quite the pro at killing my houseplants, actually.
And also yesterday these two new people moved in... two young 20-somethings. Oh my gosh... they threw all kinds of good stuff away! If I were a dumpster diver I would have gone to town, truly. I wished I'd had those two creepy guys numbers - I would have called them up and told them tonight's the night! Come on down creepy dudes! They even threw perfectly decent-looking furniture away - in the dumpster! You're not supposed to do that, and our groundskeeper guy here got really miffed about that. Maybe the creepy dumpster diver people actually do a service - removing stuff like that which saves our groundskeeper from having to deal with it.
Personally, I freecycle and craigslist stuff we don't want or need anymore. Or we take it to the charitable donations places - if you do enough of that you can write it off on your taxes.
Anyone else think with this trend that america is getting a little too 3rd world?
What's "third world" about salvaging other people's discarded property? "Dumpster diving" is nothing new and has been done in some form or another for thousands of years. No "trend" about it.
I parked in the back of a fish N chips place near a dumpster and there was a guy leaning way down into it. When he saw me pull up he came over to bum money from me, nothing unusual in that but this guy had no flesh on one of his fingers ! There was this brown little stick of a finger bone where the right index finger should have been, no flesh from the last knuckle to the tip. He said he cut his finger tip on some garbage, it got infected and the flesh festered away and then it healed at the knuckle.
Dumpster diving is common around here...but sifting through everything isn't, and it's pretty disgusting to do that so I wouldn't unless I knew something valuable was there. I burn all documents I get rid of that have info. that can be used in bad ways, whether it's a receipt showing an expensive purchase or something with my SS#. I've done a fair amount of dumpster diving myself. I used to make a bit of money flipping antiques, before the economy tanked, many bought at yard/estate sales, some dumpster dived. I pulled a 150 year old walnut chair out of one once, needed to be taken apart and re-glued (wobbly)but otherwise it was fine, and worth a fair amount, though I'm keeping it. Another chair was a hand carved armchair (mix of mahogany and rosewood, absolutely beautiful) from the 1860's, missing the upholstered seat. Easy restoration. Sold that for a nice sum. I've pulled out many other items too. I try to avoid being seen dumpster diving though many people will also stick items out by the curb with free signs on them. Some junk, some not. I found a 1930's console type phonograph/radio that way...needed new vacuum tubes, cord and a piece of veneer needed replacing.
What's "third world" about salvaging other people's discarded property? "Dumpster diving" is nothing new and has been done in some form or another for thousands of years. No "trend" about it.
When its highlighted on Oprah...That makes it a trend. LOL
Picking through trash because you can't afford your own new stuff is the definition of poverty I think.
"Sauvy wrote, "Like the third estate, the Third World has nothing, and wants to be something," "
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