Caught in the Act!

I volunteer at a charity bookshop and all the books on our shelves are in good condition or better. We are lucky to have great donations most of the time but occasionally I feel we are seen as a dumping ground for dusty, musty books that no one would want to buy. If you wouldn't buy something in that condition, take it to a recycling centre. Charity shops need stuff they can resell. Books or whatever. We also sell some toys and it's a real pain when toys are donated with parts missing or broken or cuddly toys which a dog would turn it's nose up at. That's what a skip is for.

Good for you, sunseeker. Ha, ha - I would have bought tickets to see that.

I hope you exploit their emabarrassment to the max.....that'll learn 'em!

Rosiebee I used to volunteer in a charity shop and agree with you that some people use it as dumping ground. (For some reason people seem to think charity shops want bags full of old, wire clothes hangers!). We used to have a person who regularly "donated" old dirty clothes - on one occasion a bag full of childrens' dirty torn underwear.

I had a skip when I was moving. It was on the main road and cars kept stopping to take things out, at first I was annoyed but then I realised that A) things were going to get used and B) I'd have more room in the skip.

It was much nicer when people would knock and ask if it was okay to take things, sometimes I had things left in the house which I offered them and they took, lol.

I left a mattress outside overnight ready to put in the skip the next day which disappeared. Not sure I'd want to use someone else's mattress but they obviously needed it.

I was really annoyed when I found other people's rubbish in my skip, it's just not on, in my opinion, it is theft.

Many years ago when we had just moved into a new ( to us) house we ordered a skip as the previous owner had left the garage in a bit of a state and also we had taken the old fireplace out.
A couple of days after it was delivered several neighbours came along and managed to fill almost half of it, obviously they'd all had a clear out. We didn't know these people so felt unable to challenge them as we had just moved into our forever house, it was a cul-de-sac and we didn't want to start off on the wrong foot so we put up with it. They did not do it sneakily ie. under cover of darkness but neither did anyone knock and ask if we minded. We did, very much.
When the company came to collect the skip the driver told us it was overloaded, therefore not safe so we had to unload some of the stuff and order and pay for a mini skip from our very much overstretched budget. I cried tears of frustration that day!
We spent many happy years in that road but I never forgot our introduction to the neighbours...

Hilmix...did the neighbours never mention it to you later on, as they got to know you better?
Probably your reaction was for the best?!

I work for a skip company and this is a longstanding problem. It must be extremely frustrating as I agree it isn't cheap and having to pay to dispose of your neighbours rubbish is infuriating.
On another subject we recycle approximately 90% of everything that comes in one way or another. Sending waste to landfill with the added taxes is extremely expensive and is avoided unless necessary.
Someone mentioned wanting a skip but has issues with space .. if this is an issue ask for a wait & load skip if you can accumulate your waste close to where the skip is to be placed then you get half an hour or so to just transfer it to the skip before its taken straight away. Hope this is helpful

oldwoman70 because we rarely take clothes to be dry cleaned now I've had to buy hangers!

We share our garden waste bin with our neighbour in return for them looking after our cat when we go away for weekends. We all think it’s a great compromise. ??

We had a skip at our community garden for 48hrs strictly for scrap metal as there was old fencing, rusty car parts and even an old boiler. The merchant left the skip and collected it for no charge.
Even before we had time to load it, some clowns had dumped full dog poo bags inside!
A group of us just filled the skip as fast as we could, rang the company and got it uplifted before anyone else could add their rubbish.
Isn't it strange? The recycle centre is only minutes away and costs nothing.