actually less ...
Put the old microwave out for the scrappies this afternoon, and as I got back in to the kitchen I saw a van drive past and it had gone.
Can't have been any more than a minute :) (Brum)
A few weeks ago, my brother threw their old cooker out. It was gone in 30 minutes (London)
How do they do that!?
Ah. <weg>
A little bit more refined ... (that or the traffic was that much worse). ;-)
I'm slightly paranoid when I see one of those 'one car sized' recovery trucks round here, since I caught someone about to put the straps on my old Rover 218SD and put it on the truck.
This was the days of the tax disk and it was clearly in tax and I asked him what he was up to (well, not quite in those terms). Turns out that whilst mine did look scruffy [1], it was another car parked a bit behind mine that had a large 'This vehicle will be removed' sticker on the windscreen he should have taken.
I believe it was a genuine mistake but I wonder how far my car would have got to the crusher had I not stopped him?
Cheers, T i m
[1] The lacquer had come off from most of the bonnet and a mate who ran the local motorcycle shop asked me when I was going to 'sort it'. I asked him if 'sorting it' was:1) Free
2) Going to make it less of a target to vandals 3) Going to make it go faster 4) Make it cheaper to run.I paid £100 for it, spent little on it and got £160 scrap for it 7 years and 50,000 miles later. ;-)
on 16/05/2021, Jethro_uk supposed :
I put odd, working and/or useful to others items out, not necessarily for scrap collectors. The last item was upper section of a kitchen modern polished wood Welsh dresser thingummy, which topped a matching cupboard unit. I put it out early morning, with a note attached inviting anyone who fancied it to help themselves. I have a webcam up, watching my gates, which I glanced at occaisionally. It remained there most of the day, but later I saw it making it's way up the road with a middle aged couple. The female was doing the carrying, with the male following close behind :D
In this village we advertise unwanted items on the Facebook group, which has 1,013 members. Most are for free but some are priced. It works well. It's surprising what people can make use of.
We also advertise 'wants': hardcore, a few bricks or blocks, timber offcuts, newspapers (for animal bedding etc and papier mashe at the nursery).
Bill
Same here. Some lending and borrowing, too, for temporary needs.
Who would want an old knackered microwave though? I'm assuming it was not the council. Did you put a note on it saying, dead or something like that?
Brian
The scrap value of the copper it contains.
They don't want the whole thing, as most of it is worthless, except for the part with the copper.
Paul
Someone nicked a car parked in the nearby parking lot in the middle of the day like that. I thought the people looked a bit suspicious, but it was a rather tatty looking car that had been parked up for a long time so I didn't bother the take the number of the recovery vehicle, so I couldn't tell the police when they came asking for information.
I often try to 'pay attention' to any details that might both stand out and be easy to remember 'in case' (damaged panel, faulty light etc) on the grounds I'm more likely to remember that than any part of any reg number.
Ok, not as much use to the Police as a reg (or even partial reg) but I know what I'm likely to remember (or not).
If it really looks suspicious I might try to walk past whilst casually holding my phone in such a way that I might catch something useful on video.
A mate is often more brazen doing that sort of thing and when they ask him what he is doing (taking pictures or videoing them) he explains that they are acting suspiciously and in most cases they agree it isn't an issue as they aren't doing anything wrong. A few though have stopped whatever they were doing and scuttled off. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
There appear to be scrap men who tour the streets in the wee small hours. Anything that can be weighed in will soon disappear. Some may think it a good service.
someone dumped some stuff outside the block of flats around the corner from me
4 days later, it was still there
Not so. Pretty well all metals have a scrap value.
and then one in a million decks you with a "one punch kill"
I had a woman worked for me one time and she had a tatty worn out Triumph 1300. She left it in the roughest area of the city with the keys in the ignition and it was sill there a week later. She ran it down the coast and off the end of a jetty to claim the insurance.
Not just in the wee small hours. We have premises in a local industrial estate and I can guarantee at least 4 drive bys every day of men in pick ups and flat bed trucks.
Struggling to get rid of anything around these parts, nobody seems interested anymore.
I left a fairly large radiator out the other week and even despite posting on facebook I ended up taking it to the tip.
I think they have observed an indirect relationship between taking / accepting / using 'charity' and the need.
Like, for someone who is poor, their kids *have* to have the latest (expensive) trainers because they don't want them to suffer the stigma of wearing 'market' trainers. They all have to then do this of course and so all end up in a worse financial position because of it.
My sister is reasonably well off and lives in a reasonably affluent area and is *always* looking for bargains in the charity shops (mostly furniture) as it means she doesn't spend as much and it's actually 'trendy' to do buy such things from such places (not that she cares about that).
Being 'lanky' from very young I could rarely find anything 'fashionable' to fit me so learned at a very early age that 'fit / comfort / vfm' was far more important than any level or brand.
This has saved me a fortune over the years and helped me keep a focus on what things are *really* important. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
If you left it on the pavement here, I'd near guarantee it would be gone the next day. Oddly, these guys seem to have a moral code. Mate left a car jack out one day, and it was still there the next. So they seemingly only take things rather obviously left out for them.
round here, if you left somethingb by the side of the road it would joined by a lot more rubbish overnight.
I've some very heavy (2KV @ 0.8 Amp) old transformers I want rid of. I could try that. Or I could do what others are doing and put out a tray with "Help yourself" on it.
Brian
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