Single parent lurkers

[disneysteve]

I would also avoid upholstered furniture due to bugs, pets, and smokers. I was thinking more of hard goods - bookcases, tables, wooden chairs, filing cabinets, and kid items. I see this stuff at the curb all the time. It's amazing how much money people toss out every week. One of our neighbors is moving and I was so tempted to collect a bunch of stuff from their curb last week and sell it but I didn't want to bother. I'm sure someone grabbed that stuff up though. There were some nice items out there. Someone could easily turn them around for some quick cash.

[~bs]

^

That's true too. people love throwing stuff out for the sake of it, just because they had it for years and it's "old" and they want a new one with a different style.

One of the craziest things I used to see as a college student was during the week of finals and the week after. When all the dorm residents would move out, they'd pretty much attempt to sell for really cheap or dump everything aside from their clothes. There would literally be huge mountains of "trash" in a public parking lot, which includes appliances, chairs, clothes, fans, lamps, whatever. For a while, a long time ago, I was considering starting a part time business where I would collect up that stuff, see what's working, and sell used to incoming students the next year. And at the end of the semesters, I'd collect up the stuff (many of them probably the same I sold), and repeat/recycle. lol

[PeggyHefferon]

I would also avoid upholstered furniture due to bugs, pets, and smokers. I was thinking more of hard goods - bookcases, tables, wooden chairs, filing cabinets, and kid items. I see this stuff at the curb all the time. It's amazing how much money people toss out every week. One of our neighbors is moving and I was so tempted to collect a bunch of stuff from their curb last week and sell it but I didn't want to bother. I'm sure someone grabbed that stuff up though. There were some nice items out there. Someone could easily turn them around for some quick cash.

I read something on bed bugs the other day and pretty sure it said that wooden furniture needed to be taken apart and cleaned if it was in an infested house.

[~bs]

I read something on bed bugs the other day and pretty sure it said that wooden furniture needed to be taken apart and cleaned if it was in an infested house.

you can use heat to kill bed bugs. If it's furniture, you could get those large construction black bags and place the furniture inside it in the sun. Internal temps need to rise above 120F for an hour. You could also probably direct a heater inside the bag for a more consistent process.

[disneysteve]

^

That's true too. people love throwing stuff out for the sake of it, just because they had it for years and it's "old" and they want a new one with a different style.

One of the craziest things I used to see as a college student was during the week of finals and the week after. When all the dorm residents would move out, they'd pretty much attempt to sell for really cheap or dump everything aside from their clothes. There would literally be huge mountains of "trash" in a public parking lot, which includes appliances, chairs, clothes, fans, lamps, whatever. For a while, a long time ago, I was considering starting a part time business where I would collect up that stuff, see what's working, and sell used to incoming students the next year. And at the end of the semesters, I'd collect up the stuff (many of them probably the same I sold), and repeat/recycle. lol

Another great time to collect stuff is Saturday late afternoons. Go around to houses that had yard sales that day. Many people take all the stuff that didn't sell and put it out to the curb.

As for college, when I was in college, I went around at the end of the year and picked up a few nice items that I used in my dorm/apartment the following year. It was a great way to get free stuff. The senior apartments were the best place because they usually had more and nicer stuff and they weren't coming back so didn't need it anymore.

[TexasHusker]

I read something on bed bugs the other day and pretty sure it said that wooden furniture needed to be taken apart and cleaned if it was in an infested house.

I think if you clean the bed bugs and then allow them to live in the furniture you're all set. Lack of hygiene by the critters is the central issue.

[PeggyHefferon]

I think if you clean the bed bugs and then allow them to live in the furniture you're all set. Lack of hygiene by the critters is the central issue.

You mean freeload in my furniture?

My tax dollars already pay for enough freeloaders.

[TexasHusker]

You mean freeload in my furniture?

My tax dollars already pay for enough freeloaders.

I think it is much more environmentally conscious to be kind to the critters. If we keep killing them they will go extinct. Then what ?

[PeggyHefferon]

I think it is much more environmentally conscious to be kind to the critters. If we keep killing them they will go extinct. Then what ?

A restful night of sleep?

[msomnipotent]

You need to watch for more than bed bugs. I just remembered the time that a guy I was dating gave me an iguana. A few days later, I woke up to cockroaches crawling out of the wood base of the cage. He didn't even apologize when I confronted him. That ended that. Now that I think about it, I really hope that someone didn't grab the cage when I put it next to the dumpster.

[~bs]

You need to watch for more than bed bugs. I just remembered the time that a guy I was dating gave me an iguana. A few days later, I woke up to cockroaches crawling out of the wood base of the cage. He didn't even apologize when I confronted him. That ended that. Now that I think about it, I really hope that someone didn't grab the cage when I put it next to the dumpster.

reminds me of a story. My brother was sitting at home working on his computer, and was wondering why he kept getting bit by mites or something (might have been bed bugs). But the bites were only along his forearms. So he looked closely at the arms of his desk chair and discovered that they were infested. So he threw the chair out by the dumpster (perfectly good looking chair), cleaned the area as best he could. Apparently the problem went away.

Anyways, he went out to run an errand, few hours later he came back to see a resident of his condo wheeling his infested chair into the elevator. He told me he was thinking to himself "hope you enjoy that chair buddy. There's a reason it was thrown out"