As Listed (on Freecycle, or elsewhere)

Someone offering a used Ikea pencil on our Local Freecycle

Wasn't there some chap in the USA who started off swapping something pretty useless like used elastic bands or bent paperclips and went on and on until he gained a house?

I am a fan of Freecycle and I have picked up some very useful items over the years. Tomorrow I am going to pick up bags of gravel locally for my rear garden. I have also given away loads of items which I would have had to pay to get rid of, a double bed + mattress for starters.

I find though that one has to state eg for bed removal that a van and two men are required. I have had people appear at my door with no means of transport and amazed that they cannot or it would be very difficult, to take a certain item on the bus.

My best acquisitions on Freecycle (now calling itself Freegle) have been: a good quantity of used jam jars when I was making marmalade; and a sewing machine for GD when she was studying textiles at A level and she's still using it a good five years later. I got, but subsequently re-freecycled a knitting machine which I couldn't quite get my head round.

We have moved so often that Freecycle has saved our sanity (and dislike of waste) on more than one occasion, but the funniest was definitely when I managed to persuade DBH to place an advert for a quantity of leads and cables whose original purposes had disappeared into the mists of time.

His advert read

'Large quantity of odd cables and leads available. A decorative asset to any man's garden shed, to give it that certain 'Man Cave' appeal.'

We had almost a dozen replies!

Last year we gave away a new, unused colour laser printer on Freecycle and DS gave away conservatory furniture. Sometimes it is easier to just say free to anyone who will collect.

I have just seen this "request" and I am

WANTED: corner sofa and laptops

i am looking for a part descent laptop and a corner sofa black leather
if possiable

Not a "please" in sight!

A local request on Facebook for my area:

'Wanted urgently today, free double bed, all bedding and two pillows. Inbox me!'

There were several comments, most unrepeatable, one saying she had one and asking if they wanted her husband to be left in the bed

when

Some people really do extract the urine, don't they?

Occasionally I find that someone has posted on Freecycle something along the lines of "Wanted, some manners!" and they then go on to complain (quite rightly imho) that they will not consider giving items to people who contact them saying *have you still got x, 'cos I want it"

I recently acquired a Kindle via Freecycle and the fellow said that he had around 65 replies- many were "gimmee gimmee" I will pick up in 10 minutes. I wrote a small piece stating why I would like to acquire the Kindle, not forgetting my manners whilst writing it!

Yes, there are some annoying people! Our son bought new lounge furniture so put an ad on there, good quality and condition [which it was] sofa and 2 armchairs, pale green colour, free to take away.Somebody phoned and he agreed to take a few hours off work so they come come and take it. A young couple came [were very late] looked at it and said 'Oh, we don't like that colour of pale green' and went away again.

My daughter offered a king size bed for offers, as she decided to let her young sons sleep in separate bedrooms. She asked that anyone who came to collect it could please do so in the half term week. Amongst the time-wasters was a woman who said she could collect it by 2pm the next day, and offered £20, so my daughter accepted the low offer, under the circumstances. The woman turned up at 2pm, on foot, and could not think of a way to transport the bed to her house a couple of miles away. At least she turned up on time

The bed was re-advertised.

I have never been on Freecycle but i have to look after reading this thread. What to swap? Dog and dog bed, unused second hand knitting machine (?), Sony EReader, but definitely not my beloved Kindle

DebnCreme we registered with our local Freecycle site and created a separate email folder, I get new alerts popping in all the time!

A good move for a first timer is to offer something before requesting something! We offered quite a few part used tins of emulsion, where we kept trying different colours and not liking them. They were snapped up in no time and a very nice young couple came to collect them.

I was struck by the number of Freecycle replies that said, more or less "Do you still have X? I will take it off your hands." So kind of them to do me such a big favour!

The ones that annoy me are the ones that say "must be in excellent condition". Do they not think that we might like to keep it for ourselves if it were? What do they want for nothing ?

I so agree, greenfinch. My next offer will be for three rather rusty bikes. I do occasionally get people not turning up, and I now bombard them with emails giving them increasingly weird suggestions as to why they may not have turned up. It makes me feel better. 'If you can see signposts for Derbyshire you are 200 miles out of your way', that sort of thing. Even if I don't like an item when I turn up to collect it, I simply re-advertise and am less economical with the truth in its description. I have been astonished at what goes, I have advertised things and people have turned up and taken away things like building rubble that we had been about to take to the tip!

The ones I hate are the beggars. Or beggers. They give you 100 good reasons why they should pick you, and later on you discover that they have lied. One woman said that her house had no curtains in her children's rooms, they were cold, had no heating, her brother would be around to collect them as she didn't have a car.

The brother came to collect the curtains, they were for his new flat! He hadn't a clue that his sister had used her children to emotionally blackmail me into choosing her. I don't bother now, first come first served.

You also have to be careful that if you are selling something in a reasonable condition that it is not being picked up to be sold on ebay. I have fallen into that trap.

Well, that wouldnn't bother me if I just wanted to get rid of the item! Any takers are welcome to make a profit.

As a Freecycle moderator I think I have seen it all! Together with the other mods I have a list of members who are Trouble and a further list of members who run various charities or have special circumstances to consider.

Freecycle does help to keep stuff out of landfill and find new homes for unwanted items

I used to be a great fan of free cycle and have used it to dispose of unwanted items always making sure that the item worked and had been dusted down etc. However just recently I have started to get a bit fed up with all the ' wants' that are continually being posted. It is usual to see posters asking for all sorts of equipment including laptops,mobiles etc. Also while I am having a rant they ask for furniture from specific stores like must be from the Ikea range or an exact colour or size. But the wanted posts I like best are the ones who are asking for big or heavy items and then say that the person who is offering would need to deliver as they have no transport. I am the sort of person that is more than happy to donate anything to anyone who needs it.But when I offered two booster seats which my GS had outgrown and the collector had a better car than me it started me thinking that I may be better just donating them to the local charity shop.

"Two single beds, one brand new, never used" - that made me chuckle for some reason.