We really looked forward to those exciting nights not knowing what treasures we'd find. Our finds include, but are not limited to, cordless phone (working), phone table, a big floor-sitting cabinet in perfect condition, computers and computer parts, power supplies, books, tools, toys, beautiful silk flower arrangements (made great Christmas gifts), paintings, paint, ice chests, costumes, party supplies, perfume, canned goods, holiday decorations, even a complete Christmas tree with decorations (our first tree), electronic parts, and so much more I can't remember. We told one of our friends about what we were doing and when he came to our state for a visit, he would not rest until we took him "diving". While the 3 of us were out, we found several goodies but our last stop was the best find of our life - we got a 19 foot boat someone had left abandoned in a parking lot.
I got a fullsize taxidermied horse, an old oven, 6 broken pool sticks, a qball cut in half, and many stuffed animals. Behind a mortuary, I found a coffin which I modified into a bed, free formaldrhyde, half used candles, and used pencils with plenty of free erasers. Behind the barber shop, I got a perm chair, 3 hair dryers, and a bag full of hair which I sold to the wig shop. Also, I found a broken arcade that is built into a table and made a grill out of it.
Howdy: Two saddles, used but in excellent condition, Many color TV's just plugged them in and they worked fine, a .22 cal. rifle, Lots of very nice furniture, Clothes shoes and boots brand new never used, $900 cash, Cash in all forms from a hundred dollars to a penny, Many pictures of people naked, don't people know their garbage man looks at the things they throw away.
I'm a fourth gen diver it runs in my family my greatgrand father started and ran a dump in my home town, guess where most of it ended up, yep almost seventy years hes paaed and you can still find stuff in my grandfathers backyard all my life i've been trained to spot good stuff by my father and I try to teach my friends. Scavenging just comes so naturaly
I really liked your page. I was wondering if you ever go on any high risk dumpster missions? I live by company deleted in city,state and with help of laser pointers, head lamps and radar detectors, weve managed to raid their dumpster nine times without being caught by security. Any simialar stories or advice?Nope, no good advice for the type of diving you've been doing, except be careful and keep a bail-bond phone number handy.
when in college I drove pizza delivery in OHIO back then the landlords tended to dump your stuff on street-side when you were too late with rent. I knew when and were best stuff was found....furnished 2 apartments that way.
A pappasan chair, carpeting in great shape, a dresser (with all drawers!), a floor lamp, a cabinet missing its doors (which we turned into a bookshelf), clothing, and cooking utensils.A couple of tips: our local utility company uses HUGE cable reels when they're laying cable. They are happy to let people have them when they're done with them. We use one as our kitchen table, one as an end table, and one as a table on the porch.
Second tip: stores regularly have to get rid of products that are beyond their "sell by" date. If you can learn to be in the right place at the right time, you can get all kinds of free goodies before they ever even hit the Dumpster. For example, I scored countless pints of (perfectly good) Ben & Jerry's ice cream from the company representative when she checked the supplies at a local convenience store.
When night diving especially, the suggestion has been made to make up "signs" saying something to the effect of "Free - please help yourself" and post them on the dumpster you're currently working on. So... if the police or other do show up it may not look as bad.
Your Garbage Page: (The pun is realized and apologized for) your page is worthless, ridiculous garbage. I think it is ridiculous (therfore worthless), and I found it through the Ridiculous Web Page.Opinion noted... everybody's got one....
Last week I discovered That I had lost my pager. Thinking I must've misplaced it around the house I rang it up hoping to hear it go off, but alas, to no avail. Later that day my good friend, Mike McDiver, and his gorgeous wife Grabby Gabby stopped by and what do you think they had found? Well as they were diving at one of our favorite dumpsters Gabby heard a beeping sound coming from somewhere near the bottom of the pile, not noticing anything she was going to ignore it when the pager went off again, this time she dug in and pulled out the pager that had evidently fallen off my belt the while I was "fishing" the previous day. They thought that it might be mine, since they know I sometimes carry one.In the Chicago area we sometimes run into surly employees who are a little uppity and do not like us to take their garbage [grocery stores are the worst] I have found that dressing as a priest when I scavenge helps turn away thier wrathful stares and whining complaints.This also has the nice side benefit of allowing you to harrangue any one who happpens by about the sinfulness and wastefulness of overcomsumption or anything else that is on your mind.
I picked up a Diamondback brand Mountain bike (@300-400 bucks) and am currently riding it. I just had to replace a pedal!
A buddy and I were visiting a large government hospital near our homes and were having a cup of coffee in the cafeteria when we saw workmen passing by with large bins full of stuff like furniture, cans of food, promotional displays, books and table linens--and then passing the other way with empty bins. On our way home we drove out past the back of the building and found that they were throwing all this stuff into three enormous dumpsters. Apparently it had been going on for days. There was everything--furniture, commercial kitchen appliances, even a complete freestanding hotdog cart out there. We were reluctant to do any serious diving until we asked the head workman if this stuff was actually being thrown away and could we help ourselves. He responded that for whatever reason, the government had no way to resell or dispose of these particular items beyond throwing them away. They "had to go" as part of a remodeling job and we should have at it. Needless to say we did. While I don't regularly dumpster dive I can honestly say that its a fun, rewarding practice and that the goodies are definitely out there!The bounty:
multiple car loads of brand new goodies. The most memorable: --Brand new top-quality chrome industrial wire shelving and frames, --A complete, unused California Olive Board promotional kit including several cases of jumbo California black olives, about 500 promotional cotton aprons and a very nice coffeetable cookbook. --Table decorations and linens for every holiday from Thanksgiving to Easter to the Forth of July and a Ben and Jerry's holstein cow cut out that still graces my back yard.
i went out one night with my droogs and we found some good stuff at the bowlinglane dumpster. 12 "old scratched up balls" and a few pairs of shoes. They looked cool and i sold them for 10 bucks to a kid at my school.
A set of little jars of paint (great for throwing at houses!) 10 combination locks with tags attached, sold them for 75 cents each Outside a bookstore, over two hundred copies of the "Green mile" series by Stephen King.. sold them all.and adds a word of warning...
one time I went outside a medical building. Watch out for those hypos - I almost got jabbed with God-knows-what nasty crap.
M Braun (with a good tip)
I read John's book (and wrote to him, too), bought the video for our library and I'm damn sure I'm right up there at the top of his "Can you top this?" list of divers. If they gave out degrees in this stuff, I'd have one: CDs, designer clothes, computer parts, keyboards, monitors, 2 printers, a laptop 386, furniture, tvs dozens of CDs, audio atapes, movies, books, magazines (only the most currant), coupons for free stuff, jewelry, you name it! I do it casually at dawn or at lunch during a working day in my very nice car and pretty decent clothes (or at dawn with a celular phone and jogging clothes). I've eluded police and janitors and them dreaded rent-a-cops, too. Rule 1: look ok and you're ok. Look like an INSPECTOR with a clip board and you're someone to avoid! Best wishes!
Candace adds
My family used to find some great stuff at our local dump (we called it 'Bloomingdales') some notables - an E-Z boy recliner (a tiny rip on the back), a pill bottle full of gold nuggets (later sold for $300), a box of brand-new clothing - price tags still attached (thanks, Sears). My favourite - someone's entire STAR WARS collection, records, comics, posters, books and toys.
Maclare lists a variety of finds:
silver watch on a chain with penknife attached, 1950's floor model hairdryer, big gatorade cooler, food grade 5 gallon tubs that I use to make homebrew, all the magazines I want, a variety of furniture, a carload of potted plants, stripped paperback books, a tophat!, (and my personal fave), an 1940-50's strap massager--the kind that was supposed to shake off excess pounds--the kind in every other 1940's screwball comedy. It not only looked splendid in the livingroom, I've used it as a prop in several shows & once rented it to a film crew for $100.TYMBRIM69 reports finding a rechargable mulching mower, leaf blowers, chain saws, a power washer, vacuum cleaners, a roto-tiller, an Aiwa stereo + much more. he says, "Thank you, Sears."
Evy writes:
This is totally awesome!!!!!! My friends and I used to go "dumpster diggin" in Fort Worth. We did it when we were broke and had no money to go out. We would dig for treasures and then a couple of weeks later hold a garage sale and we made lots of money doing that. Some things we found, tvs, cordless telephones (all working), bent wood rockers, clothes (of course we had to wash them), a fireplace set, toys for the kids, boxes of cassette tapes, new glassware, dishes, pots and pans, boxes of brass items (really cool for me since I collect brass) and tons of other neat stuff. It is really neat to hear of other people doing the same thing. When I moved from Texas, I would tell the tales of our dumpster digging days to my new friends and they just could not believe that I would do any such a thing. I am glad to see I am not the only person to have done it. It is fun and profitable.
Babb, a dumpster digger since five, found some good things, too: a whole case of beer, a fox carcass, a bucket of deer guts, and a paintball gun. I think he'd like to find that million dollars....
J knows that Dumpster Diving is profitable. They have furnished a large part of the house thanks to other peoples "Trash", such as a sofa sleeper, a beautiful oriental floor rug with just a few minor tears on the edge which are covered by a table.
Mike (and Mike's friend [email protected]) fixes computers for kids that are not as fortunate as some for free of charge. He did a swan dive for a monitor the other day and it`s being put to use. If anyone wants to donate old parts or talk please give him an e-mail
Create reports a Sony8mm Camcorder (brand new in box), A deer carcass (phew). A perfectly good '386 portable. A perfectly good NEC Powermate which I used for a year, lent to 2 people for a time, and then sold to my company for $600 (it's still in use!). Bagels (ongoing - I haven't purchased bagels in over 5 yrs.). Furniture and furniture kits intact.
Jay says the best single item may be what he found from a famous office chain store . In it still in the original box with the manual and instructions was a brand new Brother Fax/answering machine.. On the box is said, "broken, makes clicking noise." At home, it worked perfectly.
Kathie from Virginia "found a repairable honey-oak glider rocking chair out with somebody's trash. About 3 months later, in the trash in front of the same house, I found the seat & chairback cushions for the very same rocker! In perfect condition! God is good. In another instance, I found 5 hefty-bags of "interesting" things in someone else's trash. The bags were white, so I could see there were clothes & housewares in the bags. After opening them, I found a set of sterling silver & crystal coasters (made in Italy), various maternity clothes (including a dress from Motherhood Maternity, altogether about 15 items), unopened bags of potpourri with prices tags in the $10 range, various Christmas candle- & stocking-holders, baby girl clothes, ceramic serving pieces, etc.! I took almost everything to a consignment store. Talk about found money!"
Rory from Norwich UK, are always on the look out for free stuff., living for about six weeks from the dumpsters behind the shop on campus, constantly find stuff for the flat - plenty of good wood for carving, a waxed cotton jacket and trousers, lots of fishing gear and bikes and at least twice a year I get some gold, the best time for that is after the Christmas and new year parties when it gets thrown out with all the empties the next day. So far this year the gold has included a Mexican coin and a bracelet. Other students here have found a piano and a bath which came in useful for storing water on a permaculture plot.
Timp found a brand new flight jacket and sold it for $57, a working VCR, a tape deck with damn good speakers. and some other little things....
Novella wanted to say that the best thing found was a salon hair dryer chair, circa 1974. it was incredibly comfortable and works!!
Tele M0nster dives for electronics, recovering cellular telephones (bag, brick, and flip), batteries, cords, antennas... Digital PDP computers, a porcelin goose and some krad system logins, pagers, and of course, some CompUSA shirts.
Snuggle Bunny has found a couple of CB radios (working), a sofa-bed (just needed seat-cushions), and a bed (matress, box-springs, head and foot boards, and rails!)... Still looking for a chair or coffee table...
Time Master says "It's amazing the stuff that the HQ of a major pizza chain will toss." He got deskjet printers, a USRobotics Sportster 28.8 fax/modem. 2.5" hard drives 250MB, and 350MB respectfully, a Colorado Tape backup drive, a slew of computer cables, stuff, stuff, and more stuff. And "the crem da la crem - a box with 95, count 'em, 95 useless 486 sx 33 Mhz processors. Bend the pins out and maybe make throwing stars?
Ernie hasen't actually 'dove', however, has found: shelving, commercial signs, candles (scented, of course), pitchers, picture frames, good wood, and much other not-so-note-worthy-but functional crapola!
Tom of The TrashMongers, have been scrounging for Pepsi Points all summer, and are just about at their goal.
Mike considers himself a dumpster pro, scoring thousnads of $$s worth of antiques and functional items, among the finds are a cherry dining room table with 5 chairs, and oak table with four chairs, 3 old steamer trunks including a vintage (and mint) marshall fields trunk, and a deco phone stand, two lamps, a coleman lantern in a hard case, a brand new camp stove (still sealed in box), two jack stands and a great old bench grinder.
Casius got started after reading John Hoffman's book, and dives in various towns in California from Yuba City down to San Luis Obisbo. He's found stuffed animals, toys and plenty of (just) dated Entenmen's baked goods, courtesy of a local grocery outlet.
Lil Crow is a beginning dumpster diver (new to actually digging around in trash but scavenging for quite some time ), so far has found a laundry hamper and some clothes, mostly shirts, and is collecting old (antique?) milk bottles.
Dick's family is not exactly diving, but seems on the practical side, picking up Marlboro packs to get a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise, CD's and cases, and of course, the $20 bill. Sounds ok.
Crustcore dropped by saying diving for cans and bottles at the school garbage cans is good.
Dan reports back some of his recent finds, listing a 621mb hard drive, leather desk chair, a Brother Image Center (scanner/copier/fax). Of course, he recommends a certain Thrift Drug Store to be very HOTTT, providing severdl watches, clocks , radio's, jewlery, perfumes, holiday items and much more.
Sylvia and Ivan sent this in: "One night my boyfriend and I were walking around the Village in NYC and it was getting chilly. We were just starting to wish we had brought coats, when we found a whole pile of them. He got a funky woolen coat and I scored a Ralph Lauren suede skirt (my size of course). Another time we were walking in Toronto, talking about getting a goldfish bowl, when we stumbled over a 40-gallon aquarium with all the peripherals. We have experienced this phenomenon repeatedly. In essence: if you walk a lot and if you have your eyes open, you will almost inevitably find what you need or desire. We are considering starting a religion dedicated to this apparently benevolent patron saint of dumpster divers. Any ideas for a name? "
Another Diver Family suggests checking out the website - Loyal Order of Dumpster Divers
This friend started by diving at a local book store (b & nobles) for out of town newspapers, then scored 200+ free disks from the discarded computer magazines. He has since expanded the "route" to include a department store, music and book store, clothes and gifts store, craft store, party city, radio shack, and a sports store.... and even takes orders for stuff!!!!
Chris and Michele are avid dumpster divers, finding Hard Drives, Mice (many mouses), Memory, 1000's of Floppies, TVs, VCRs, and many other valuable objects. Recently they also SCORED 43 Apple adjustable keyboards, selling them for $20.00. Of course they went back... and ended up with over SIX HUNDRED KEYBOARDS!!! In Chris' own words, " 'The Dive' that we seek eternally, the dumpster which we lust over, the Vallhalla of the Dumpster Vikings!"
Gregory claims that Diving is profitable, especially during the annual city cleanups..., collecting Color TV's, B/W TV's, CD player, Stereo's, Tapedecks, Chairs, China, Gold Bracelets, other Jewlery, Toys, Computers, Paintings, Statues, Money and more, with the unwanted stuff selling at Flea Markets.
Matt, an artist in Virginia, wrote that he had found an 8 foot hight Bob's Big Boy statue, a working stop light, a lot of neon products, old computers, drives, cd players, reel2reels, mixing equipment, neon signs, microwaves, and plenty of candy. Matt recommends always checking CVS around the holidays, and ALWAYS CHECK THE LIBRARY, where a complete swing record coleection, dating back to 1935, was found. (Books are resellable to used books stores).
Mary discovered dumpster diving in Texas last year. Most unique find: a glass head. Most valuable find was a 1/2 K diamond and gold tennis bracelet.
Linda knows of a person who found a V.C.R in working condition and someone who picked a functioning, silver, glitter turn-table out of film-maker David Cronenberg's (The Fly, Crash) garbage. Cronenberg lives in Toronto, and this guy lives across the street from him. Linda was fortunate to find (among other things)
Somebody on compuserve says he gets paid to dive by having the best job at a transfer station. How about a John Deere tractor (now working), and computer parts?
Money4 found lots of new seasonal flangs, Christmas lights, shower radios, mugs, baskets, toys, games, tools, desk chairs, and software. Good enough for a yard sale...
Tim found: 19" color TV, network cards, food, chairs, lamps, an Asteroids machine, clothes, books, bikes, a pool cue, not to mention toys and stuff.
Jeremy found an office chair with a bum wheel (I could use one of those!), and a decent car stereo in a box after somebody had upgraded their system. Cool.
Gabe found a dollar looking through a recycling bin at a school looking for a bottle for a dry ice bomb. hmmmm... did he ever get the bottle???
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First Posted: November 1995
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