One man's trash....
 

Assuming you aren't fastidious about taking perfectly good things from a trash pile, what its the coolest thing you've ever gotten out of the trash?

Today I just found an older 8" SAS Bazooka bass tube sitting right on top of a pile of trash in my complex. I grabbed and gave it a whirl and it ROCKS. I can actually hear the bass drops on NIN's Down In It on my desktop stereo now where it would be an anemic little bump before. It's a bit scuffed up and doesn't look new but damned if it doesn't work just fine.


I also got a few good books once, along with an office chair with a small wear mark in the seat. It lasted a year after I got it. Trash isn't always trash.

How about you? Any good scores in the trash?

sweet grab. i still remember dumpster diving at the end of semesters at school. you could find anything it seems. tv's, microwaves....you dont want to take it home, throw it away someone will get it

i havent searched through trash before, maybe i should make it a habit, i want free stuff

I once found a hobo!

i got a xerox machine and a printer that my neighbor was throwing out. luckly, it was just at the curb, and not actually mixed in with the trash getting all icky.

seriously....find out online when the last week of finals are for any local colleges around your home. then that week go by and look around, and if you want to IN, the dumpsters around the dorms. you can find TONS of good stuff. And a load of crap as well.

If you are trying to outfit a basement/party room with crap you dont care about, its perfect

Where I live, we have "Trash Days" when everyone puts thier crap on a curb and the garbage truck picks it up. The best is driving around in my friend truck, picking the crap up. I have many a linux box from those computers

back in school i found some old, battered trophy that had just been thrown out by the school cadet corps. it was dirty, tarnished, bent and dented.
i took it home, and polished it, and now it looks fantastic.

goodness knows what it used to be awarded for...

A file cabnet.

It's not cool or anything but I needed one.

Not sure, but I'm pretty positive I found a Five Dollar Bill in there once. :)

trash-picking. a national pastime. gotta love it. lesse - best I ever got was a set of china and a glass table. from people that were moving. come to think of it, they ended up giving me a tent, as well. also, picked up a set of weights and a 8" lockback from another run.

Yeah, I live next to a college, every spring is like christmas. Furnished most of my pad with graduating students furniture and crap, gotten to the point now where I can be picky, find a better chair or bookshelf, and let my old one become trash or someone else's.

Works out pretty well for me.

A big 1700-style globus.

Hey, I just threw away a bass cannon. :) Mine didn't work though.

A coffee table. We took it home by hoisting it onto the roof of the car, and holding it down while we drove. Pretty good table.

Several working computers and printers, an overhead projector, and a pile of working computer components. Seems the IT department at work was cleaning out a storage room and didn't feel like sorting. Go figure.

How about a Honda CT70 trailbike that I found at the dump once. It needed hardly anything, like I think a battery and cleaning of the points. Even the seat was un-ripped. Gave it to a young boy to ride which he loved for years.

bikes, tables, storage cubes, lamp, speaker box, children's picnic table and books. I love checking out homes in the richer areas who are having garage sales and just kinda watching for the trash day after their sign goes down...lots of stuff that wasn't sold can be found hugging the curb and pretty clean from being up for sale!

After reading this, I wish I lived near a college...I need a new smaller couch!! lol!

My father is notorious for stopping on the side of the street when we're driving somewhere, picking up a piece of furniture (or something) from the garbage, and shoving it in the back of the car. It's embarrassing. We have a vacation house upstate and most of the stuff in there is from the garbage.

here on the northside of chicago, there are guys whose entire livelihood is driving a pickup around upscale neighborhoods & collecting the good stuff yuppies throw out. every day, a truckful of stuff. i'm thinking of swithching careers.........

Back in the 70's, some friends and I used to routinely go scavenging around the industrial areas of our little town. Well, it just so happens that one of the places is a printer, and just happens to be the printer that produced the legendary Farrah Fawcet poster. We gathered up armfuls of the rejects from the trash, and took them home. I think we might have made a tiny bit of money selling a few, but ended up just throwing them out. A stash of those might be worth something now.

There's a guy that drives through our neiborhood(sp?) the night before trash day and digs though the stuff. He looks poorer than dirt. Once I threw out some old metal wall cabinets and saw him out there loading them into the back of his truck. I went out to help him and I could see by his expression that he was waiting for the typical asshole to start yelling. I offered to help him load them and told him I had the brackets needed to mount them on the wall if he wanted them. He turned out to be a really nice guy and I told him that if I ever had anything else I thought he might want I'd set it out seperate. It felt pretty good to help him out.

Found a video projector that was fixed by hooking up a cable that came loose inside.

i found a kids bike with stabilisers, yes i was drunk!
woke up the next morning with bruises and cuts on my arms, and had no clue why, friend pointed out the bike in the kitchen and explained i rode of the curb and fell into the street on about 3 occasions...i still have the bike now! ahh sweet memories!

Between ages 12 and 14 my friend and I used to dig through dumpsters for aluminum cans we made over $500 per month each. we found a coin collection that we split which included numerous silver dollars all older than 1910 some were 1880's. The stack of pornographic magazines we amassed was amazing. My friends mom ran an old motel and it had an old dug out dirt basement that we turned into our clubhouse/porn stash area. We filled an area probably 15 foot by 10 foot about 4 foot high with porn mags. We also found knives, guns, You name it we found it.

man this is making me think i really need to get some shelves and shit for this place. lamps and tables would be great. im goign to have hit up the dumpsters this spring for sure. go back up to my old college and find some stuff maybe....i know the spots there :D

I found a few coffee table style art books at a local storage facility dump bin. They took all the comics and sold them but left all of the art books. I sold one for $90 at a comic show and kept the other ones. Frank Frazetta and Boris art books for FREE!!!

I have since routinely checked their bins at mid-month (eviction time) and found nothing worth having. Dumpster diving can be fun, though.

Don't go looking after dark.
I once drug a big overstuffed chair up three flights of stairs by my self. When I finally got it in my apartment I realized it looked like crap. I kept it any way. I left it in the apartment when I moved out several years later.

Scary...

Dont wanna get in a bum-fight. lol

ROFL. nice one!!! :lol:

what did you do with him/her?

a few tvs a few vcrs that were bairaly borken and easy to fix

more then one fan all sorts of tools tons of stuff

A rusty nail in my hand. Had to get a Tetris shot.



:)

I wouldn't get a Tetris shot...it's already too addictive in game form. ;)

Sorry I just had to.


Thanks all for your replies. I've now taken to driving slower thru neighborhoods to check out their piles. I think I may be hooked. ;)

Someone two or three houses down from me threw out a barbeque once. All it needed was a propane tank and it was good to go. I didn't really need another bbq when I picked it up, but it seemed like it would be a crime not to.

Used potato gun some older guys made on my street awhile ago. I already had made one with a friend and it was better, but it was interesting to see the differences.

A little motor scooter. My dad and I dug it out and fixed it (the throttle cable had just come loose) and gave it to my little brother. When he fell and was then scared of it, we gave it to a neighbor. The thing is still running strong.

Back in my teens, someone threw out their collection of Playboys.
About a hundred or so.

Treasure Trove!!

Remember there was no such thing as the Net back then,
we has to get the real stuff.
Magazines ;)

Toothbrush :D

I got an old monitor out of someone's trash once. I guess they didn't want it anymore. Worked fine for a while then it blew chunks. :)

Not really trash but people are always leaving designer labelled clothes in the changing rooms at the paintball site where i work. We keep them for a few weeks to see if they are claimed and then i take them home. Some of the clothes are brand new. All my wardrobes are really full now! :D