Raped curbside sets

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I don't think I'd dumpster dive wearing shorts. The odds of getting cut on something would be rather high.

I dumpster dived in shorts as a kid. Naive, yes, but the odds of finding something outweighed my self-preservation instincts. My earliest finds were dress patterns, sold to the flea market lady for 10 cents a piece, netting me 30 bucks as a 12 year old.

At 17, I was pulled out of a dumpster by a cop who promptly dragged me to my old man, who defended me and told the cop about my windfalls from dumpster diving. When I got my drivers license, I gave up DD'ng altogether and took up curb crawling. 30-some TVs later, I'm still at it. Nothing lately for me, but the wife got some 300 or 400 new commercial clothing hangers out of a skip outside a closed clothing store. Dunno if she was wearing shorts.....

Cheers,

[marty59]

In my neighborhood anything is for grabs once it's placed by the curb. The scrappers always come by the day before pick up and take things whole which is fine with me. They gotta' eat too and the regulars will come by with their trucks/trailers and will haul off most anything!

I parted out a rear axle..gone! My neighbor had a junk engine block, no problem..gone too. I don't mind saving up scrap to make it worth my time but it sure is convienent with the handy haul away service!

Not that I'd be guilty if something catches my eye...

[rpm1200]

I'm still seeing TVs thrown out around here but nothing too interesting. I'm also seeing a lot of empty LCD TV boxes, more of those than discarded TVs.

Around here scrappers still pretty much leave TVs alone but I've got one guy who grabs anything with steel and cuts off power cords on anything I throw out. I really wonder what the power cords are worth vs. the gas he uses driving his pickup around looking for them...

[ctc17]

I explored this abandon minimum security prison complex out in the desert that closed down about 5 years ago and you wanna talk about RAPED.
Every ac unit was ripped apart and the coils pulled out, looked like they were pulled off the roofs with a winch. The power poles in the housing area were chain sawed down to get the transformers and light fixtures. Every single building (85 or so) was tore half down to get the copper wire and pipe out. There was a bank of crt sets mounted on the wall that had been raped in place for the copper.
Im talking about an entire small town sized institution just completely destroyed for the copper. Its like killing someone for their gold fillings. The place looked like a war zone, good photo op though.

No one is even interested in the local dumped crt sets. There is one of the 27" 90s black plastic things thats been sitting down street on the curb for a month.

[bgadow]

Last week an ad showed up in the local paper, looking for old appliances and TV sets. So I called the guy, he is covering a pretty large area, all for scrap. I told him about my hobby and he said he would definately call if anything older turned up. I offered him anything late model in return. (I have an 80s set right now that's ready to go)

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Last week an ad showed up in the local paper, looking for old appliances and TV sets. So I called the guy, he is covering a pretty large area, all for scrap. I told him about my hobby and he said he would definately call if anything older turned up. I offered him anything late model in return. (I have an 80s set right now that's ready to go)

There's a guy like that around here that gets my later model junk for the same reasons. I've asked him to save any older stuff for me and I told him that I was willing to buy the stuff if it was anything I can use. So far, all he's done is blow hot air. Comments such as, "I found an old house out in the woods that's full of those old TV's like what you want and I'll bring them to you this afternoon". This afternoon has not gotten here, yet. Frankly, I think he's stringing me along; hoping that I'll keep giving him junk. I don't mind giving him my junk, as he's the only "free" disposal option left for me. If he can make a few dollars off the copper; then, I'm happy for him. I just wish he wouldn't promise me the world on a silver platter if he's not going to deliver.

[AUdubon5425]

When I got home yesterday I saw a free ad on CL - "several old TVs on sidewalk, may still work..." I didn't bother venturing down there 9 hours after posting - in that neighborhood, I'd bet fifty bucks they were smashed up by lunchtime.