You threw away what?!

I decided to put my log book on this forum so you can all see the crazy amount of free stuff in good condition that I find while walking my dogs at night in NYC. My girlfriend and I recently moved into a new apartment on the Upper East Side and we had been noticing how much brand new (or antique) stuff is left out on the curb.

So for fun (and because we are both as cheap as they come), we started grabbing stuff that is in good condition. Either we use it, try to sell it, or give it away.

Oh, and keep in mind, bottles and cans have a $0.05 deposit on them so we return those.

We just started keeping track, here is what we have so far:

6/18 - 18 books, 1 milk crate, 4 deposit cans ($0.20)
6/19 - Aero-Swiss Humidifier (Valued over $100), Keurig Coffee Machine ($120), Small Dust Buster, Best Fitness Leg Developer (Over $100), 11 deposit cans ($0.55)
6/20 - 7 deposit cans ($0.35)
6/21 - 37 bottle deposit cans (took the dogs on a long walk this afternoon) ($1.85)

That's the last four days, I'll update this as we get new finds.

Anyone else do this either out of necessity or as a hobby?

Stephen

Check out the new blog @ http://youthrewawaywhat.wordpress.com ... my site where all I do is talk about garbage!

Oh, forgot to mention 30 My Coke Rewards points

MLV gets his food free from behind fastfood joints.

One of my brothers is into dumpster diving--he gets a lot of interesting stuff, but one of his best finds lately was a set of heavy rubber concrete stamps (you use them on fresh concrete to imprint paving stone shapes). Those ended up selling for about $275.

Good stuff OP. That's about as good as it gets for sidewalk/dumpster diving - that's the place to be!

better time is moveout week in a college town.

Quote from Dr. J : better time is moveout week in a college town.

Seriously. Those kids throw out all kinds of stuff!

We have people here in suburbia that troll the neighborhoods on trash night. We once put an old, rusted-out grill on the curb and it was gone an hour later. Ditto with a child's bicycle that was rusted and had rotten tires, and a couch, easy chair and mattress from my sister's place.

Quote from AggieMom : Seriously. Those kids throw out all kinds of stuff! We have people here in suburbia that troll the neighborhoods on trash night. We once put an old, rusted-out grill on the curb and it was gone an hour later. Ditto with a child's bicycle that was rusted and had rotten tires, and a couch, easy chair and mattress from my sister's place.

Anything made of metal is worth $$$ to the scrappers, they come through our neighborhoods relentlessly on trash nights - coming up and down the streets about 4 or 5 times per trash night - and their trucks end up filled by the end of the night. There is also a HUGE problem with businesses around here having their central a/c's being vandalized and the copper stolen from them; it's an epidemic at this point. Several businesses now have 24/7 security due to this; as it has become so costly to replace what has been stolen numerous times. Homes that are up for foreclosure, those too are being stripped and/or businesses that are closed at this time. If there is metal to be found, watch out; they will go for it due to the increased cost recyclers are paying for it. Our regional rail line has gone as far as marking all their lines, equipment with special paint - so none of it can be sold to recyclers anymore. Hospital's have put up fencing downtown with barbed wire around their systems as a result of this as well.

Quote from Piccaboo : Anything made of metal is worth $$$ to the scrappers, they come through our neighborhoods relentlessly on trash nights - coming up and down the streets about 4 or 5 times per trash night - and their trucks end up filled by the end of the night. There is also a HUGE problem with businesses around here having their central a/c's being vandalized and the copper stolen from them; it's an epidemic at this point. Several businesses now have 24/7 security due to this; as it has become so costly to replace what has been stolen numerous times. Homes that are up for foreclosure, those too are being stripped and/or businesses that are closed at this time. If there is metal to be found, watch out; they will go for it due to the increased cost recyclers are paying for it. Our regional rail line has gone as far as marking all their lines, equipment with special paint - so none of it can be sold to recyclers anymore. Hospital's have put up fencing downtown with barbed wire around their systems as a result of this as well.

A bunch of vandals did that to a local Easter Seals camp (AC's on roof). Lowlifes.

Quote from Dr. J : A bunch of vandals did that to a local Easter Seals camp (AC's on roof). Lowlifes.

Yep, they hit a lot of roof top businesses around here as well - it's really bad. Many security camera's are being installed, but a day late, and a dollar short at this point. And, the sad part to this is the recycle centers know damn well they are taking in "stolen merchandise" - but because these stealer/scrappers are breaking down everything into less than $100 buy backs for cash - it goes unrecorded at the recycle centers - they are trying to pass a law now - that anyone recycling anything would need to be paid by check and show I.D. as well - which I think is a good idea. Though I'm sure the vagrants who pick up cans and stuff off the side of the roadways won't be happy about this, as they probably don't have I.D. to show to turn in their shopping carts full of cans and stuff. But it would keep down the lowlifes who are stealing this stuff. I don't think a day goes by, where it's not on my local news page here, about this happening.

If you think it's bad here, down the Jersey Shore it's much worse, for all those people who have homes that are empty all winter long; they are vandalized pretty well by the time people go down to open them for the spring/summer season; same thing - copper being stolen.

I'm not into the whole scrapping idea for myself. It's too heavy to carry that shit around when you don't have wheels (mine are parked out in the burbs at my parent's house). I'll leave that to the people with the trucks. Tonight's walk wasn't super lucrative in terms of stuff. We walked only 6 blocks to let the dogs take their night-time leak and came up with another 24 bottles ($1.20) and 4 caps for My Coke Rewards.

I used to say (given that I have 3 dogs)... "if I had a nickel for every shit I picked up I'd be rich" ... well, now that I've been doing this, I'm getting like a quarter per shit haha.

Forgot to mention --- snagged a WaWa milk crate as well. Those are great for storing stuff in the closet. Dunno where it came from tho, I haven't seen any WaWas around here....*opens google*

Quote from AggieMom : Seriously. Those kids throw out all kinds of stuff! We have people here in suburbia that troll the neighborhoods on trash night. We once put an old, rusted-out grill on the curb and it was gone an hour later. Ditto with a child's bicycle that was rusted and had rotten tires, and a couch, easy chair and mattress from my sister's place.

For sure. My girlfriend said that in her dorm's move-out last year people were piling up textbooks to throw away in the lobby. We are going to raid that this fall and sell them on Amazon.

interesting finds.

scavenging is illegal in my city.