My friend Virusdoc has a cool post today about acquiring stuff that other folks throw out. Although not as ‘active’ as he, I too appreciate the joy of finding gems in other’s trash. Some of my finds:

• Back in junior high school, a friend of mine had no bike, her family didn’t have the money to buy her one. Well, our neighbor was throwing away a bike that needed some help. I snatched it up and either I bought parts for it (not likely, how much $$ does a 6th grader have for that kind of thing?) or just patched it up with stuff I had and gave it to her.
• Right after we moved into our first apartment with a washer/dryer hook up this avacado green washer and dryer showed up at the dumpster. I quickly dragged them into our basement. The washer turned out to be no good, but a $10 belt and and afternoon of work and the dryer was just fine.
• When we moved into that apartment mentioned above, the previous tenant had left a bunch of stuff behind. They were moving out of state and there was no room on the truck I guess. Unfortunately the guys painting the apartment got some of the better things like a CD boombox and microwave, but we got a stuffed chair and ottoman, office chair with casters, wire office cart and a large file sorting tray, sort of like a mega in and out box.
• The best one, however, was a few years ago. I was delivering newspapers in the AM to bring in extra money to allow Maria to stay at home with our 2 kids. I learned that a woman at church was about to junk her ’88 Subaru wagon. She got a new car and didn’t feel right about selling the old clunker and it’s troubles to anyone. I offered her what the junkyard would give her ($30 – $50), but she said if I wanted it I could have it, but warned me it was always overheating. I got it home, put in a gallon of water and drove it for over a year on the paper route, adding water every couple of weeks. The only thing it needed during that time was a timing belt, which I changed myself for less than $50. The belt broke a second time when I was done with the route and I donated it to charity. It brought $75 at auction.

I must admit, however, I am a little self conscious about riffling through stuff at the curb. Most of my ‘finds’, like the car, haven’t been that public. I’ve past by some stuff because I didn’t want to be seen out ‘dumpster diving’. Still, it’s nice to get free stuff and give it a new life.