Bin raid olympics

Brodiej

I've just had a few bits and bobs done in my kitchen and as a result left a manky old gas oven covered in gunk on the pavement with a view to taking it to the tip the next day. It was also with 4-5 smashed up cupboards made of chipboard. Within 12 hours (overnight) the lot had gone! The next day i left a tumble drier in the same spot....this time gone in 10 minutes!!!!!!! What is the rankest thing that you've had raided and can anyone beat my 10 minute exposure time on the tumbie.

ben

My girlfriend and I like to refer to this as 'Finsbury Park freecycle'. Anything goes in minutes.

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missisclack

a half eaten jar of gherkins (they weren't crunchy enough for him indoors)

andy

We had some old heavy duty radiators replaced. They were in our front yard covered by lots of other plumbing related rubbish. I took the first lot of plumbing rubbish to the tip and when I got back, the radiators had gone. In about 20 minutes.

Emma

A microwave which had just broken, spewing black plastic-smelling smoke everywhere. The microwave was obviously bust, we had left it outside due to the smell, and it was gone within hours.

I think the gherkins wins though.

miss annie

@Brodiej
Do you live in Moray Rd by any chance? If you do I live a couple of doors down from you and saw some urchins carting your stuff away.

I rescued a beautiful 1930's bedside table that someone left in the road last year.

Brodiej

@Miss annie
No, i'm on Hanley. Talking of rescuing, i guess i'm guilty of a bit of bin raiding. Last year someone had put out a beautiful piano onto the street, and within 20 mins a load of hoodies were circling it on mountain bikes saying they were looking forward to smashing it up. I flagged down a people carrier, said i'd give them £30 to help me get it out of there (which they did), and the piano ended up in my sisters house. Didn't really want a piano but it was worth £30 just to ensure something wasn't just destroyed for the sake of it. I don't think anyone felt compelled to rescue my tumble drier though.

Ali

I recently acquired a full set of golf clubs and buggy on the street

Tallboy

@ Ali. You haven't also recently acquired a tumble dryer, washing line, tumble dryer and dodgy jar of gherkins by any chance?

Ali

No but a trouser press I put out on the street with a take me sign lasted 6 mins as timed it.

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Beek

Walked up Evershot road tonight, someone has left for the taking a "fully working fishtank filter system" nicely labelled as such, on their garden wall.

hannahbflynn

I put a load of seedlings outside me house with a "help yourself" sign. I was happy they were all gone in under 15 mins BUT this was during a tropical torrential downpour. People will even stop to nick stuff in the middle of a storm!

sincers

I left an old chest of drawers, made of chip board, that must have cost £30 brand new outside my front garden. I hadn't even finished writing the "free - please help yourself" label when someone pulled up in a people carrier. When I first moved in and had the old bathroom ripped out, the scrap was put in my front garden, outside my front bedroom window. The front garden is well enclosed by tall shrubs and cannot easily be viewed from the street. On consecutive nights I had to chase off an elderly Irish chap rummaging through the rubbish. We only had old sheets for curtains, so it was a little disconcerting. On the third night he offered me £30!

Ali

He would ne looking for scrap metal coper pipes etc. We have had the same experince when we did the kitchen

twinspark

I put a desk by the front gate and had literally just put it down when a guy picked it up and took it home -no talking just a nod of the head to acknowledge and it was gone in less than a minute. Thing is if he'd waited there was a chair too!

Love the idea of trouser press with a 'take me' sign on it - is this why they're in all those hotel rooms?!

poxy

We're doing some building work and we've had a skip outside the house for a couple of months now. I reckon less than half the stuff put in the skip has made it to the tip. Even stuff put in the skip under cover of darkness by my cheeky neighbours (I know who you are!) has been snaffled by the local recyclers. Earlier this week it almost came to blows as two guys doing the rounds turned up at the same time. At one point they each had hold of the same piece of cast iron drain pipe.

djalicat

I found a potted ficus tree next to the phone box on Stroud Green Road. I had seen it when I walked up to Tesco and it was still there when I was walking home, so I took it.

nick_m

I don't think that's stealing. If it gets left out by the street, it's fair game. I was at home one day and we had some odd bits of wood hanging around outside the front of the house, and a very polite man asked it he could liberate it. He's probably driving around looking for stuff that people are chucking out. Good on him. In my view, anything that can be diverted from the tip is a good thing.There's no guilt in bin raiding. In today's "bung it in the bin when it has a scratch" culture; I think it's quite refreshing. The old 'make do and mend' mantra is a good one.

sincers

There's a house on FPR opposite mine having a total refurb. Its the second along this stretch in the last few years which has taken up to 2 years to complete. During this time there has been sometimes 2 skips + assorted commercial vehicles permanently parked outside the property. On the stretch of FPR outside the CPZs, parking is a bloody nightmare - the skips make it a lot worse. So I think neighbours have every right to use these skips. It looks like they've been given the go ahead for a drop-down kerb as well. I think these developers should offer some kind of compensation for being so damn selfish.

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Jenowl

There is often stuff left out on UTP near the SGR end. It ranges from big articles of furniture, to books, to make-up. Most of it seems to go very quickly. I think it's a great idea as long as the people who take it really want it, and don't just change their minds and dump it in landfill. Speaking of which, I was really impressed with the Haringey Recycling Centre. You can recycle pretty much anything there and the staff are helpful and show you which containers to use if you're not sure.

Arkady

Sincers, is that the one about halfway between Londis and the top of the hill, on the right hand side as you head up? The company working on it are called Decorinthians, which initially struck me as painfully apt as they appeared to be stripping all the classical character features from the exterior. They appear to have restored those now, however they have completely rendered the brickwork which I regard as a criminal thing to do, and certainly something that you are not supposed to do to a Victorian house in a conservation area. I haven’t been able to find the planning documents to see whether they have permission for it. A great restoration job is being done on the house opposite me on Mount View. It is, however, somewhat of a ballache to be woken up six days aa week by them commencing work – usually a good half and hour before they legally can – by exchanging loud and obscene greetings and seemingly trying to recreate Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music using their tools and skip. I don’t know when they started, but it was before I moved in at the start of December. A

Ali

Arkady If the house is in a Conservation Area complain to the Planning Department of the Council who will investigate. This is usually easy to do on-line. I have had some recent successes were “developers/builders” have broken the conservation are laws and have had to rectify the work. When the council get back to you they always say that there wasn’t a breach as the developer was going to the right ting anyway –oh yeh, it is just that the planning officer hasn’t gone back to check the work and doesn’t want to own up to that ! Give it ago it may work

Nick10

@Misscara. Was the used pregnancy testing kit left on your front wall positive?

Cat

I got home at 7 in the morning to find someone going through the bin bags left outside by someone who lived upstairs and had just moved out. I think they were surprised to be disturbed but I had no issues as long as they retied all the bin bags and left it as tidy as they could - which they did. They seemed to be getting some pretty good stuff including clothes still with there labels on and exercise books which had never been used.

ADGS

Arkady, if they're regularly starting work illegally early, why don't you just complain to the noise abatement types?

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tosscat

Congratulations (someone).

nick_m

That house on FPR is a mystery. They must have spent a fortune on it. I don't see why people should be rewarded for concreting over their front gardens with essentially a free, private parking space in front of their house marked out by the council. I would be minded to park in front of any house that has this privilege bestowed on them for their environmental degradation. If I had a car, that is.