quiet amusement

[neadods]

Tomorrow is the town-wide "dump day" - put out anything short of a whale, and they make it go away. An hour ago, I put out a side table that was badly scratched and nicked, two CRT TVs, a mixer that's about 50 years old, and a CRT computer monitor.

An hour later, only the monitor is left.

Comments

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

It's called recycling... ;)

Says a lot about computer users that no-one's taken the CRT!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

We have aquarium supplies leftover from the yard sale - it's tempting to print out the instructions on turning an old monitor into a fishtank and then try to unload supplies and monitor as a kit!

[fyrdrakken]

I have a friend who likes doing similar, only he makes the old monitor into a terrarium instead of a fishtank.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Making terrariums is one of those "I wanna learn to do someday" things. There's a class at the local library... but it's only for 8 year olds!

[fyrdrakken]

I thought I had a dim memory of him having done a sort of instructable thing showing how he'd done it, but nope. Though I did track down the iTerrarium in his gallery.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

We can call for a "special trash" pickup any Friday except holiday weeks, but it means no big occasion when people can scavenge from each other. It's like a yard sale for free!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. I just took a tour of the neighborhood to have a good look at what's up.

The town was pretty smart putting this just a few days after the town-wide yard sale. Whatever you couldn't unload for cash, you can unload for free.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

And people who missed the yard sale, or didn't want to spend the cash, get a second chance at the stuff... much of which will no doubt show up at the next town-wide yard sale.... (I think there's some stuff that just goes from yard sale to yard sale and is never actually used. Or was it ever new? Where did it come from-- like the Velvet Jesus? Is there anything about this in Hitchhikers' Guide, or do the Brits not have yard sales...?)

Anyway, I hope plenty of people are taking your Goodwill option and not just junking stuff that doesn't deserve to be landfilled.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

No we don't have Yard Sales. We do have Jumble Sales though (very popular way of raising funds for groups such as scouts, guides, Women's Institute, church youth groups). Jumble Sales take place indoors - often in a church hall.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Isn't there also something called a "Bring and Buy"? I always thought Jumble Sales and Bring and Buys were the equivalent of our yard & rummage sales.

Culturally speaking, you need a yard to hold a yard sale, and it's my impression that it is far less common over there to have a stretch of lawn in front of the house.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Yes there are Bring & Buys - those require you to actually bring something to sell, otherwise you can't buy. A Jumble Sale merely requires you to turn up and pay a nominal entrance fee...

As for yards, it depends where you are. City and town dwellers tend not to have a front lawn, suburbanites and villagers do. For instance, we have a tiny front lawn outside the house I live in- it's what I'd call, pocket handkerchief sized - whereas my parents' house, where I grew up, has a huge front lawn.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

those require you to actually bring something to sell, otherwise you can't buy

What happens if your thing(s) don't sell? Do you still not get to buy?

As for yards, it depends where you are

Ah.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

So long as you bring an item to sell, you're allowed to buy, even if your item doesn't get sold.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

A lot of what's out there is refrigerators and other large machines. That and scrap wood.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

Probably the closest UK equivalent of a yard/garage sale, in that the sellers keep the money, is a car boot sale. People accumulate in a huge field, pay a fee to set up as a seller, and sell stuff literally out of the boots of their cars, or on a folding table set up for the purpose. There are people who do this more or less as a business, and they will have much larger vehicles and display areas.

Mostly, though, people give stuff they don't want any more to charity shops or jumble sales. I suspect that selling stuff in your front garden would be considered... well, tacky.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

It's kind of tacky here too, present company excepted.

Our equivalent of a car boot sale is called a flea market-- I don't know why. Some of them are big weekly affairs with fairly permanent sellers, as you say. I think they get a lot of their junk from each other.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

You'd probably be surprised how much of my stuff originally came from a yard sale. They're common (we can argue about the definitions of "common") in suburbia.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've heard of those.

I suspect that selling stuff in your front garden would be considered... well, tacky.

redpanda13 and I disagree on this, because it's something that I consider normatively suburban. It's hard to find a suburb that doesn't have a yard sale or two any weekend with decent weather, and most of the townships around have a day set aside for a town-wide.

Now, it can be argued as to how much of normal American culture is also tacky... :D

ETA: Most of the "get out of debt/save money" books around here have large sections discussing buying from and/or running yard sales. TBH, a fair amount of my stuff comes from judicious yard sale-ing.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree. I helped with yours, and you had good stuff, mostly. And it's a good way to acquire stuff inexpensively. But have you seen some of the stuff at some of the yard sales, the ones where things like Velvet Jesus would look normal...? "What were you thinking...?"

[neadods.livejournal.com]

They're thinking "Get that thing out of my house! Maybe someone else will want it!" :)

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Heh. The year I moved here, the vote for "Best Thrift Shop" in the Houston Press was "heavy trash day in the Heights". (The Heights is where the rich liberals tend to live; there's a lot of remodeling and redecorating, and Perfectly Good Stuff, some of it very eclectic, left out for pickup.)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I could imagine! I love the Bethesda yard sales for that reason - a much higher quality of stuff being dumped.

[redpanda13.livejournal.com]

Similarly New England has a high quality of used bookshops, since the locals tend to have more education than money.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

We can go and make an appointment with the city and they come around and take the thigns you put outside - It's quite interesting to see what disappears and appears (appointment costs money) in a night or so ;)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

So people would take your unwanted stuff *and drop theirs off*? I'm equal parts amused and appalled.

Any other time of the year, we'd also have to make special arrangements and pay. This is the annual exception.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Sometimes things like chairs and tables appear, yes. It's been getting better since they're offering a drop-off point that's not as expensive ^^

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

My county's pickup requires you to say, specifically, what they are to pick up. They won't pick up other things that are not on the approved list. So if you decided to add a rug to the list and didn't tell them, they'll leave it in your yard.

[nnwest.livejournal.com]

One of the few reasons I miss living in town: "trash amnesty" day. When everyone's junk gets swapped around and the city takes whatever is left. Every year we'd come home with some "brilliant" finds that invariably ended up on the curb the next year. :D

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Every year we'd come home with some "brilliant" finds that invariably ended up on the curb the next year. :D

Heh. There's plenty of stuff I've picked up in one sale only to sell it myself in a few years.