Free Things My Neighbors Give Away
Every week, my neighbors leave things out in the hallway that they don’t want anymore, hoping that someone else in the building will give their things a new home. Most of the time, they are books. Sometimes, they are weirdly shaped vases. One week, it was the first season of 24, and this week, it’s a bag of dry spices, and the first season of The West Wing. I haven’t taken anything yet, because I try to keep my apartment as clutter-free as possible. I’ve also seen really great bookshelves, coffee tables, and vintage storage trunks left out on the street to be collected by the sanitation department, but I refuse to rescue furniture in New York because: bed bugs. (Sorry, Logan!)
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Previously on The Billfold
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I’m trying to picture what a vintage storage truck would look like. But I suspect this is just a typo.
Also: Free spices! What’s wrong with you man?
@stuffisthings Ahhhh, TYPO. I feel weird using spices from people I don’t know for some reason?
@Mike Dang When I move to my new place I’m so buying all my spices online. Buying spices at the grocery store is the closest feeling to being mugged that I’ve ever experienced, aside from actually being mugged.
@stuffisthings Spices are very expensive! And yes, you have them for a while, but if you want lots of different ones it adds up. Buying them online is a thing? I’ll have to look into that.
@bgprincipessa Yeah the only problem is you have to buy vast quantities to get the really good savings. Like, you can get 4 oz. of good oregano for $5, but it’ll take you 20 years to use it.
@stuffisthings Or 50 lbs. of herbs de provence for $266 — that’s $0.33 an ounce, and 800 ounces. Let’s split it guys!
@stuffisthings I don’t know if you’re in in New York, but FreshDirect, a local grocery delivery service, has a lot of spices for $1.19 each. They’re the Spice Supreme brand, so not top of the line, but if you’re shopping for other things (FD occasionally has good deals), throw ‘em in. Or the dollar store on W. 40th. They have good deals on random things.
@RocketSurgeon Penzeys.com! Extremely wide selection, excellent quality, cheaper than buying at the local supermarket.
@mishaps I love Penzey’s! Their gift packs are my go-to under-$20 gift for relatives at Christmas, housewarmings, etc. Their curry powder is amazing.
@stuffisthings Also, check if your grocery stores sell spices in bulk. I used to hate having to buy new spices but when I discovered the bulk section at my HEB it was a godsend. I’ve never spent more than $0.50 to get about a 14 cup of whatever stray spice I need for a recipe. I think a lot of the price in the prepackaged spices are the cost of shipping the packaging around, and also highway robbery.
I would definitely take the West Wing DVDs. Someone who has lived with me in the past few years stole my season 3 box set, which was devastating (and confusing), and I really don’t want to drop over $100 on the full set.
Also, I totally harvested a vintage buffet/cabinet thing from the street in JC and it is absolutely fine (after a thorough cleaning). If I had a garage, I would paint it and fix it up a little, but I don’t, so it holds my DVDs when they’re not being stolen by my roommates.
There’s someone on the second floor of my building who might be moving or purging or going through a crisis because everyday for the past 2 months, the landing has been covered with someone’s belongings. Bags of clothes, half empty bottles of body wash, a dying plant, a vacuum. One day there was a mattress. It’s always changing.
@totallyunoriginal half empty bottles of body wash! see the thing is, people love to give body wash/lotion/whatever as gifts, so then you end up with this huge pile of crap you know you’re never going to use. throwing it out is SO wasteful! but who would use it? this is actually a dilemma for me as it’s the main thing i can think of in my life that i can’t realistically pass on to friends, family, or goodwill.
@redheaded&crazy How come you can’t pass that stuff on? Occasionally I’ll try a new shampoo, lotion, hair product, etc., and not like it, so I will pass those on to other friends to try. They don’t seem to think it’s gross or anything. Is it gross to do that? The hardest thing for me is that conditioner seems to last a lot longer than shampoo, so I always end up having a bunch of half empty conditioner bottles with no shampoo.
@redheaded&crazy Right, I’ve definitely had those moments of pause before I throw a barely used product out where I’m like, “but this is SO wasteful!–I’m sure somebody could use it!” I’ve also been on the receiving end of that guilt and have taken bottles from friends before…only to throw them out without using any. So now I’m trying to get better at saying “thanks, but no thanks!” when people offer me stuff. Unless it’s liquor, obviously.
@Amanda Webber@facebook hmmmm you may have a point! In fact if I think a bit more carefully about it, I have tried to give body lotions and things away, but nobody wanted them. I don’t think you could give it to a goodwill though could you? Even if it is full/mostly full?
@redheaded&crazy Homeless shelters, food pantries, and womens shelters often accept donations of (unused) personal care items.
@DickensianCat @redheaded&crazy FREECYCLE. Find out if there is a freecycle listserv in your area. People will take anything. I have seen half bottles of shampoo and perfume offered up many times.
OK, I wouldn’t take the spices, but I would take all of the DVDs and books. I do give lots of stuff away, though it’s usually to people I know.
I found back issues of 2 fancy-ish quarterly magazines I’ve been hearing about (Anthology and Kinfolk) for free on the street yesterday. Wasn’t ensorcelled by either of them, but I’m glad I didn’t have to pay $30 to find that out!
@cuminafterall You just taught me a new word. ensorcelled=enchanted. I am ensorcelled.
If you see some furniture on the street you REALLY love, you can very carefully seal it in a garbage bag for about a week. Bedbugs only live on blood (I’m sorry, too, Logan!), so if you cut off their supply to it, they die off pretty quickly. I know a guy who gets all his furniture and decor from the street/junk shops (and lives in an amazing space!) and has never had bed bugs, because he uses that trick.
@alexandria yeah, this is totally wrong. Otherwise, getting rid of bedbugs would be a lot less labor-intensive!
@alexandria Yeah they can hibernate for 6, perhaps 9 months without a host. Otherwise all I would have had to do was go on vacation for two weeks, instead of switch apartments and dump all my furniture :(
@alexandria This is an absolutely terrible idea and a great way to get bedbugs. Bedbugs can live for a long-ass time without feeding. For accurate information about bedbugs, go to bedbugger.com. Don’t take furniture off the street.
@editrickster He swears by it, but you’re right: based on the information on that site, it looks like he’s probably just been lucky. Sorry, I should’ve checked for independent confirmation first!
What a shame, though, that so much totally fine, bedbug-free furniture gets thrown away.
I understanding not wanting clutter, but god man, take the DVD box sets. If nothing else you can get a few bucks from selling them.
Selling them is probably not worth the time/trouble to him for the money he could likely get for it. It wouldn’t be to me either, at least.
I am very thankful that in my neighborhood I can put things out at the curb (a figure of speech; the sand pit that is my yard runs directly into the street) and people will take them and use them.
My neighbor across the street put out a nice wood entertainment system that I took in to my house, used for three years, then put back out on the street when I no longer needed it – and it was gone within 20 minutes to another home.
@ThatJenn Same with my neighbourhood. I love it! I’ve found everything from new bamboo blinds for the patio to, just last weekend, an almost-new pair of converse sneakers in my size left in the alley. Everyone, even us, leaves stuff in the alleys and it’s always picked up within a day. I found a mid-century Eames style chair in an alley near our home that was in excellent condition. The next weekend I saw the exact same chair selling for over a hundred bucks at a vintage shop! Our neighbourhood even has a little book exchange box on the corner for everyone to leave a book/take a book, which is heavily used. When my sister visited she was amazed at all the perfectly good children’s books in the box as her neighbourhood is nothing like ours (hers is more suburban car-centric while ours is a walk&bike-friendly urban neighbourhood).