My dad hoarded dozens of wood pallets in the garage. I wanted to get rid of them, so for months I put classifieds “free wood pallets, come and get them” but I only got messages from assholes that wanted that I delivered them for free on the other part of the city. Finally I got a message from someone that seemed to be interested. I gave my phone number, he called me immediately “I’m coming right now, where is your location”. I said that right now I can’t, but the wood is in [city], what about tomorrow? He agrees, he says call me tomorrow and tell me the address and I come immediately
The day after, I call and nobody answers. Meanwhile I am at the garage so I waste one hour taking out all the pallets in the garden. I have to go, so I tell my dad to call the number to tell the address.
The day after I am back and I see a mess in the garden. Many pallets were taken but some of them were left, not in a neat stack, but all threw away.
I am calling the number of the pallets guy to get pissed at the mess (and of course he’s still not answering my call), when my dad sees me from the window and comes to tell me: the guy never answered the phone (so he never got the address) but during the night someone trespassed and stole the free stuff!
I’m baffled that the secret to easily getting rid of stuff is making people think that they’re committing a crime.
An old legend says that Frederick the Great was trying to get his subjects to embrace the newly discovered potato, but they were absolutely not having it.
So he planted them in his royal garden and posted guards around the clock (with instructions to not actually stop anyone from stealing the potatoes).
Sure enough, once they were a closely “guarded” luxury, people started stealing them and growing them for themselves.
In my city you just put anything you don’t want out in the street, maybe with a little note saying “still working” or some other relevant info if it was an appliance and it will usually be gone within the hour.
I have furnished multiple flats with free street furniture that I have come across whilst out and just had to carry home.
I realise that it is not like this everywhere but I love the culture of actively recycling useful items within the community just by leaving them in the street for people!
Be very careful with “free” furniture. Easy way to get bedbugs, at least in my area in the US.
…they are free pets, double win.
Yeah, I’m super allergic to them so I tend to stay well away from the free zone
Yeah, there’s an unwritten rule in my area that if something is left close to the street, it’s fair game, sign or no. I almost had my bike taken as a kid because I carelessly left it in the free zone to grab a snack, haha! There’s always cool stuff to find in people’s free zones.
We had someone steal my daughter’s wheel chair that was in our drive way in the 5 minutes it took for us to get her ready to get into it.
My parents had a few old barbeques that they didn’t want. My dad said to put them out at the road, and I thought it was a waste of time. The next time I looked out they were gone. Somebody got their $3 of scrap at least.
Same here, especially if it’s got metal in it. Any thing that could be sold as scrap metal gets picked up in under an hour.
I wanted to get rid of an old lawnmower that was technically operational, but literally held together with duct tape and baling wire. That’s not an exaggeration, I had to use wire to keep the deck from falling off, and it still did if you hit a bump too hard.
Sat out every nice day for about a week and a half with a “FREE” sign next to it
The day I replaced the sign with “$20”, I went to hammock in the park, and came back to a sign, no mower, and no money. Exactly as I wanted
That is an old joke, I heard it as an old fridge. It’s true though.
That is an old joke, I heard it as an old fridge.
Literally where I got the idea from. No idea where I heard the joke, I want to say my grandpa?
Regardless, if it works, it works.
We did it with a leather recliner on the curb, sign said free. On trash day we crossed out free and wrote “trash”. After the garbage truck didn’t take it we made a new sign for $5, gone overnight.
People think it’s a scam when you give it away for free, maybe that’s a part of it
An approach I’ve seen people use is to set a low price and when they actually have a buyer picking up the item, refusing money.
Selling $150 grand piano
With FREE DELIVERYI’ve also heard that it’s easier to sell an item for very cheap than it is to give it away for free
Hmmm, here you just return the palettes for getting the €10 deposit back.
They need to have an “epal” logo burned on them or otherwise are considered disposable, mine didn’t have that logo
My mom picking up random free stuff is why the basement is a fire hazard… can hardly even walk around…
As a kid, when we first moves here, I used to run through the entire house… now there’s no space to move around… with all the stuff around blocking the way… ugh…
This is what happens when your parents grew up in poverty.
Can confirm, wife does the same. House used to be empty now I get yelled at if i ask for one free wall.
Yea I have better luck selling stuff than giving away the same.
