Depressing time in my DIY journey

Freegle was a spinoff from Freecycle following some kind of petty political row. From Wrongipedia;

"Freegle was formed on 11 September 2009 after many Freecycle groups in the UK decided to break away from the US parent organisation following disagreements on how groups in the UK should operate and the dismissal of long-term UK moderators, who had been speaking out."

They both suffer from the problem that they involve dealing with the general public.

Just looked on my local freegle, everything newer than two months is a WANTED, most of the older OFFERs seem to boil down to the offerer seeking to avoid a visit the tip.

I have sent you a holding reply. Hopefully more details in the next few days

You also get a lot of "Wanted: Rolls Royce. Offered: Used baked bean tins".

I've generally found Freecycle OK - at least in London. Certainly better than 50:50 - and occasionally a gem.

(Had a CRT TV to get rid of. Long after FreeView was the only TX, and flat screen LCDs the norm. But it was quite a 'posh' one. A youngish Eastern European bloke collected it using a sack trolley. And took it home on the bus - two journeys with the stand. Commented on this, and he said he played drums in a jazz band so was used to moving awkward loads without a car. He asked if I likes jazz (which I do) and he posted a couple of tickets to me for his next gig.)

That more than made up for the 'no shows'.

I never actually look at it, since I'm not after stuff. Just post the offer which isn't difficult, and let those who want it contact me.

Rather obviously stuff which can be carried by hand is more likely to go than things which need a truck to collect. ;-)

Freegle is just a splinter group. People got fed up with constraints (as they saw it) of the main FreeCycle organisation. And it's trademarked, or something.

I've given up with the local ones because they became far too bureaucratic; they even wrote (bad) forms to constrain the way you wrote an offer advert. Some of the admin people were just power mad. And I'm sure some of them were creaming off all the good stuff - I had offers before the advert went public, and missed out on other stuff the same way.

Then there's the people who just grab everything and eBay it. And the many who say they're coming, you wait in, and they don't turn up. Then get offended when you junk the item or give it to someone else.

And you make it clear what the item is in the advert, and they still ask inane questions.

Rant over. For now.

Same for broken electrical goods, with their crossed-out wheelie bin "do not put in general waste" symbols.

You either have to go to your local tip or major recycling centre, and /drive in with a car/ - not a van (or they think you're commercial) and they don't let you walk in even if you live nearby so you have to make an environmentally-unfriendly car journey, or find one of the small electricals bin if it's no larger than a video recorder - but those are few and far between, and usually not somewhere you frequent.

F*ck that noise. I put it in the bin. If TPTB want it separate they can damn-well separate it. If we happen to be going to the tip anyway, I put it in the relevant bin/skip/container anyway, but that's as far as I'll go. Hell, I even put a (perfectly functional, sadly) CRT TV in the wheelie bin after the digital changeover & the bin men took it. (I tried to give it away, complete with a Freeview STB and no-one was interested.)

Would many plastic surgeons be likely to respond?

G.Harman

Nobody wants used stuff any more.

Myself included, it seems, as I clear more and more "useful sometime" stuff out :-(

Cheers

Dave R

Dunno about the contents but you might get a good price for the empty tin.

or

separate organisations but similar

just ignore those, I assume they're some kind of ill suited software feature. Freegle started because of problems with how freecycle was run.

NT

An easy way to much improve the odds on those issues is to say in the ad so mething like please say when you'd want to collect. Any that don't can then be passed by as probably unreliable. And if you ask for a phone no upfront too it's far quicker to get it gone. People that misbehave can just be spa mbinned.

It's not perfect but a lot of stuff can be got rid of in a day or 2 that wa y. And it's surprising what some people want.

NT

don't try selling the gelignite ;)

"no you can't have a refund because you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"

Owain

That can happen with dynamite, which becomes rather dangerous if it's not stored properly, but shouldn't happen with gelignite.

Or just leave your small electricals next to the bin, where they will collected and recycled appropriately. Depending on how well your council deals with recycling, of course.