Seeing Good Stuff Being Thrown Out

[jyl]

Basement storage units in my office building are being cleaned out. Stuff that previous tenants abandoned there is being thrown in a dumpster. Including two complete vintage Vespa scooters and six or seven decent looking bicycles, all rapidly disappearing under the pile. This is painful for me to see, but I am trying to tell myself it is not my problem. Ugh.

[Bill Douglas]

complete vintage Vespa scooters That would bring tears to my eyes too.

[unclebilly]

Vintage vespas are worth a bit of cash? I think?

[jyl]

I think they are worth some $. Way too heavy for me to jump into the dumpster and lift out, and I've no vehicle to fit them in. I called the vintage scooter shops in the area, none of them are open on Mondays (?). I found a vintage Vespa club, emailed the contact with pics and location of the dumpster. That's all I can do. Sad.

[Bill Douglas]

My mom had a light blue one. Yep, she was pretty dangerous on it LOL

[Baz]

Yikes.....

[Zeke]

Someone is really stupid. They could have gotten that storage emptied without paying anything. In fact they might have made some money. You know the dumpster company will sort that out before scrapping if the stuff gets that far. That's part of what the do. Don't worry about that part. Let the stuff go.

I used to know an eccentric fellow that owned a small dumpster company back when that whole thing was getting started and there was no recycling. Not for him. He had his own yard where he separated the good from the useless and not only got paid to haul it, he had a 2nd business selling scrap and repairable items, if not actually working items. It was a lot of work but I think he had fun.

[flatbutt]

Back in the day many towns had "clean up days" when you could toss out anything you wanted to and the town would take it away.

I'd take a pickup and cruise the "upscale" neighborhoods. You wouldn't believe what those people threw away.

I made more than a few bucks and furnished an apartment.

[LWJ]

John. I have a big pickup. I have always wanted a Vespa. Tell me where. You have have your pick.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Grab the Vespas and send the bikes to Byron and me.

This will make one hell of a "What are you fixin' up today" thread addition!

[jyl]

The Vespas are gone. I feel better.

LWJ, I tried to send you info on where - I was headed up to skiing and had crappy service, message may not have gone out, I'm sorry.

[sc_rufctr]

Threads like this make me think...

One thing I do not want to do is leave a mess for my kids to clean up (I don't exactly know why I feel this way).

[wdfifteen]

Good job on saving the Vespas. I would love to have one.

I, too hate seeing good stuff thrown out. I watched an outrageous example when I leased an 8000 sq ft building out to a new tenant. The place had been remodeled 5 years before by me and I did everything first class. The contract allowed them to pay for a remodel to suit their needs. Their contractor tore out every inch of the 8000 square feet of 6" fiberglass batting from the ceiling, threw it in a dumpster, and replaced it with 3" batting. Idiocy.

[john70t]

Grew up in a college town.
Move-out was a good time. New leather couches still in plastic left at the curbside.
Collected cans after football halftime or after game when they used to let people in.
Lived in a few basements after high school (sans madre or internet) and learned mechanics from the dozens of half-bicycles pulled from dumpsters.

One man's trash is..

[KFC911]

^^^^ I still have a couple of milk crates in my garage ... as I didn't toss perfectly good college dorm furniture!

The expensive, small private schools are where ya strike it rich !

[911Ghia]

Heard Joe dumped some really good stuff recently.

Rich

[911 Rod]

I have a couple of friends in Cape Coral Florida.
After the hurricane Ian, people were throwing out great stuff that I assume they had insurance pay for.
Both of them drove around with their trucks and scored. Most of it they put on Kijjiji.

[jyl]

One year in college, my daughter lived in a small apartment building near campus. One of the units was occupied by some well-off Chinese exchange students, who sometimes threw nice stuff into the dumpster. I got in the habit of checking the dumpster when I visited, scored a virtually new Patagonia jacket. My daughter teased me about my dumpster-diving. Later, when she moved to Marseille, she furnished her apartment with furniture that people had discarded on the street. I was so proud.

[wdfifteen]

Oh yeah, college bug-outs can be a treasure trove for townies. I owned a sports and foreign car repair shop for 3 years in an elite college town; lots of rich kids. They abandoned 2 356s and half a dozen VWs, not to mention a Comer Caravan, to me. Lots of stories to tell about those days.

One kid left an absolute rust bucket 67 Karman Ghia. I took all the valuable parts off of it, but what to do with the dead body? There was a railroad siding a hundred feet from the shop and one weekend they left an empty, unlocked boxcar sitting there. I bought a case of Robin Hood ale and invited 6 of my friends over for a drink. Yep, that night the Karman Ghia disappeared and the next week so did the boxcar. I laugh to think of some railroad worker in Detroit finding the hulk of a car registered to some kid from Long Island in one of his boxcars.
Some kid left a clapped out ‘66 VW convertible that ran OK. I used it for a while. One nice spring evening I took a drive in it with my girlfriend and her kid and their dog. We got ice cream. The kid gave some to the dog. The dog got sick and puked, which made the kid sick and he puked. We decided with the whole back floor flooded in puke our best option was to leave the car buy the side of the road and catch a ride home. I never saw or heard of the car again.

[Zeke]

^^^^You wished you had that vert now. I had '55, '65 and '67 verts. Who knew? In fact, 50% of the 30 or so cars I had in my early years are all 5 and 6 figure cars.

Edit: I'll amend that to say almost all would be worth 5 figures, but low. And the '36 MG Saloon I had might not be worth what I think.