Who Dumpster Dives - Stories Please

pyotr · #1 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 12:14 AM

I don't dumpster dive, but am fascinated by this behavior in the extreme tightwads. Please submit your anecdotes for our reading pleasure.

sakigt · #2 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 05:29 AM

I certainly dont dumpster dive, but I have stopped and picked up furniture on the street ready to be thrown away. I know others do the same. In my dad's neighborhood anything we put out to be tossed was taken in at least 15 minutes

StressLess · #3 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 05:30 AM

Well, my DH has worked in apartment complexes for years, and has had access to many dumpsters.

At one place, there was a little convenience store right in the complex. When the Tastykake guy delivered the new stuff, he was required to trash the old stuff. If he actually offered it to someone, he could get in trouble. So he'd very carefully put it on top of the trash in the dumpster, so it was clean and easily retrievable. DH and his co-workers were bringing home quite a few free family packs of cupcakes there for awhile!

Ima saver · #4 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 07:11 AM

My husband's uncle owned a garage service. His wife had a garage sale every week selling all the stuff that people threw out!

pyotr · #5 (**permalink**) 06-09-2006, 08:25 PM

Amy Dacyzyn wrote about dumpster diving quite a bit and talked about THIS BOOK which is supposedly the bible of dumpster diving.
Check out THIS LINK which is a very heavily frequented forum about Dumpster Diving.
I'm thinking there ought to be more dumpster divers here who are not coming out of the dumpster closet.

lrjohnson · #6 (**permalink**) 06-10-2006, 02:13 PM

I just reread the Amy article this morning-coincidence for yea. Second coincidence, my guy ordered the book Amy reviewed. I haven't dumpster dived recently.

When I was young and lived a very different life I had a corner I hung out on in San Francisco that had an eclectic bunch. (Church and Market, the restaurant side, catty corner from the book store, for anyone who knows the town.) I'd end many evenings by sitting and drinking cocoa and talking to these characters. Jason and Steve, two homeless men, would dive books for me because I'd always sit on the bench reading. Once I went diving with them, and got a mighty fine cabbage. I was probably 13 or 14. Yeah, a different life.

Ima saver · #7 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 01:42 PM

I have never even been tempted to dumpster dive!! ugh!!

notmadeofmoney · #8 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 02:32 PM

We enjoy watching the dumpster diver in our neighborhood. (You would think we would have better stuff to do). At first, this couple would make the run through the neighborhood every garbage day driving a beat up old truck and picking up what people had left out for the trash. Their truck bed was always full of a lot of stuff. Well, a couple of months ago, we noticed they'd bought a new truck to make their weekly run with. So they must have been doing well. Well this past week we noticed they have competition. Another guy driving a truck was out earlier than they were and beat them to the stuff. We must have a neighborhood where people throw out lots of good stuff. LOL.

Ima saver · #9 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 02:47 PM

Our trash has to all be bagged or it will not be picked up. No one looks in the bags.

kealina · #10 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 03:35 PM

i don't consider myself an extreme tightwad but then i don't consider it dumpster diving either.... once in awhile, when we are driving around doing the yard sale thing we will see that someone has left perfectly good stuff out on the sidewalk next to the trash can and we will sometimes pick it up depending on what it is... we picked up 2 sets of speaker stands at one place and sold them for $10... can't remember anything else...
that's about it for us... usually any good stuff curbside gets picked up way before we see it since we don't keep track of trash days or actively go looking for stuff...

abowers · #11 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 06:13 PM

The only actual dumpster diving i've seen is when there was a dumpster next to my apartment last year, and the bums would actually get in the dumpster to look for who knows what. they'd actually take their shirts off and get IN the dumpster and rummage around.
pulling furniture off the curb is not what i'd call dumpster diving.

abowers · #12 (**permalink**) 06-11-2006, 06:21 PM

I don't call this dumpster diving, but I picked up a dresser that was at the curb with some other stuff presumably not sold in a yard sale -- turns out it just needed some new hardware to hold the mirror on the back, and it was missing the casters (sp?) on the bottom -- I took it a week before I moved into a new apartment, refinished the surface, cleaned it up, and have been using it for 2 years.

shengmei · #13 (**permalink**) 06-13-2006, 11:36 AM

I don't have any stories per se......all of my furniture comes from dumpsters.

The funny thing is when my hubby moved in, we had to re-dump a lot of our furniture. We put it outside the dumpster and arranged it by color (like a garage sale). Soon a car with four international grad students approached. A guy yelled out "Are those for free?" I yelled "SURE!!!"

They took everything. We must have made their day.

Ima saver · #14 (**permalink**) 06-13-2006, 01:03 PM

I have done that in Fla. I put a canapy bed out near the road and it was gone in minutes. I have never seen that done here in the mountains. I live on a dead end street, so get very little traffic.
Last time I moved, I had a free room. I put all kinds of things in that room ( a whole set of crystal that I had won) and one elderly lady stopped at my sign and took it all. I am sure she sold it all later, but hey, that's ok!!

Bookie · #15 (**permalink**) 06-13-2006, 02:40 PM

My only experience dumpster diving occurred the day I tossed my newspaper -- and my car keys -- into a recycling dumpster.

Not one of my fonder moments.

That said, I'm very tempted to go out and dumpser dive right this minute. We have community trash collection with dumpsters, and I just tossed my garbage and noticed that someone has thrown out half a dozen commercial totes. For those who don't know, these are stout, reusable packing cases with hinged lids. They cost a bundle, and I'm outraged by the sheer waste. Those things are built to last for years.

Doubt that I'll risk climbing into a dumpster for them, but I'm so tempted.

It's shameful what I see casually tossed because people are too lazy or too negligent to donate. Goodwill and the Salvation Army even advertise free pickup. Shameful!

End of rant.

shengmei · #16 (**permalink**) 06-13-2006, 02:49 PM

If it is a recycling dumpster with papers, etc. I would often dive in for free material. I don't do it late at night because I am concernec I would be mistaken for an identity thief.

Nowadays, however, it seems everybody shreds everything already (a very smart thing to do!!!)

Fern · #17 (**permalink**) 06-14-2006, 11:43 AM

I'm also intrigued by the idea of what you could find, but my town is too tony for dumpster divers and besides you either have a sticker on your car that lets you go the dump with your own garbage or you pay for private curbside service, which, like ima said, requires that everything be bagged. They took all the fun out of it.

About 20 years ago i did retrieve a small old wood table and bookcase, painted them, and kept them all these years. I sold the bookcase for $10 at my tag sale recently.

Dumpster diving in reality is not too appealing, but i loved living in a certain town years ago that had Junk Day, one designated day each year where you'd put out large or bulky items at curbside and the town would pick it up. Lots of people would go cruising thru the neighborhoods to see what there wa; that could be fun!

Ima saver · #18 (**permalink**) 06-14-2006, 11:58 AM

I think a Junk day is a good idea, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

katwoman · #19 (**permalink**) 06-14-2006, 12:08 PM

I haven't done it but a friend I visit lives in a large condo complex. Before I go up I linger in the complex vestibule where the mailman leaves piles and piles of weekly ad circulars. Picked up some great new/transferred prescription coups this way.

And no, I don't feel guilty. This is a very well heeled suburb. Not many coupon clippers, if any.

Back to the dumpster diving: a gal I once knew had a husband who worked as a city sanitation driver (garbage man, as they're known in my parts). His route was downtown Chicago. One of the stops was at a well known department store where he retrieved 50 brand new Coach bags and a $700 oriental rug that is now in their home. She tells me he routinely brings home lots of goodies.

shelbylovesmelby · #20 (**permalink**) 06-18-2006, 11:03 AM

My mom was a diver, she collected cans & coupons from the trash. I didn't mind that she did it, but it was embarassing as a tween-teen to have someone mention they saw your mom dive'n in their trash. I would go with her sometimes when I was a kid, I don't know why I stopped or why I went with her in the first place. I'll tell ya our car was nasty from the smell of can's, not that it was anything worth looking @ anyway. But it was what my mom used to suppliment her income before Recycling everything became the standard & diving was a "no-no"

I did it when I was 12 w/ a friend for the soda cans and used the money I got from the cans to buy myself a new bike.

One of my friends, mother used to dive in the back of the grocerystore dumpster for meat.

My mom's cousin used to dive to get coupon sections out from the gas station dumpsters. Her & my aunt used to get some decent cut flower boquets from the garden centers trash.