Kerbside skip browsing - have you? Would you?

No, I wouldn’t but a lot do. It is called recycling here.

Say a bike had been dumped in a skip and I fancied it, I would call and ask. There is really nothing I can ever think of that I would retrieve from a skip. Recently I crept out in the dark to add something to one locally.

Our neighbours have a skip and my dh asked if he could have some pallets from it . They were happy to get rid , more room for their stuff

My husband would and has, I have to stop him accumulating more junk useful stuff.

I have but knocked on the door and asked first. They were quite happy for me to take an old, small wing back chair as it emptied part of their skip. I had it cleaned and recovered and it's one of my favourite chairs. That was about 15 years ago, not done it since.

Don't think I would investigate the neighbours skips though.

I’ve had a variety of lovely stuff from skips. And our local tip.

I had to get skips to clear out my Dad’s house. They were frequently raided through the night, much to the concern of his elderly neighbours, who weren’t happy with the skips in the first place! We call them skip rats round here, but had they only asked, they could have taken what they wanted in daylight and not terrified the old folk.

Last time we had a skip I came home to a truck parked across my drive and two males in the skip.
They were rude and intimidating, I parked round the corner until I saw their truck go past 🤬

The 2 terracotta pots you can see and the blue pot on the right were from a skip.

It is theft unless you get permission from the owners.

Whitewavemark2

It is theft unless you get permission from the owners.

You beat me to it, Wwmk2

My daughter had a skip a couple of years ago and someone dumped a fish tank in it. My son was delighted because his fish were rapidly outgrowing their old tank.

Our neighbours recently had a skip and I asked if he had room for an old garden bench. He happily came and collected it, skipped the rotten wood and salvaged the cast iron ends. Both of us happy.
But while the skip was on his drive, people would drive past, having a recce, then help themselves to some of contents. They said they had permission. Hmmm?

Whitewavemark2

It is theft unless you get permission from the owners.

Oh dear, I retrieved a newish Michael Palin book from a skip when a neighbour's house was cleared before she went into a home.
I'm sure she'd have gladly given it to me had she known.

What is more annoying is finding things in your skip that you didn't put in there.

My husband does too sodapop. He once collected a very good child's bike from a skip. We repainted it and oiled it and our first two grandchildren had loads of fun on it.
He is out really early in the morning when nobody is about.

We just had two skips outside as we are renovating a guy came and spent along time digging through both of them. Asking permission first good luck to him is our attitude.

It’d take a very special sort of person surely to object to someone making use of something they’d actually thrown out, let alone want to report the “crime”?

When we lived in Germany you could just put any unwanted items straight out onto the kerbside on the first Saturday of each month. People would take whatever they wanted and then the leftovers would be scooped up by the refuse trucks at midday. We got some great stuff for our flat that way.

Callistemon21

What is more annoying is finding things in your skip that you didn't put in there.

Absolutely

When I was a student a boyfriend got me a spotless one of these out of a skip.
They fetch a fortune now.
He was an absolutely useless so and so, it was definitely the best thing he accomplished

Of course someone else’s rubbish can be your recycled project and if they don’t want it why shouldn’t someone else make use if it Just makes sense doesn’t it ?
Anything here not wanted we put outside the back gate near the bins (not for the bin men just a message that it’s rubbish) and it’s usually gone by the next day The best one was when we put some kitchen pipes outside and later in the day an old boy knocked on my door and asked if I d got the brackets that went with them 😂
I ve found things for my garden I like a bit of someones else’s rubbish you can be really inventive with it

Yes. We had loads of stuff from dumpsters in America - where, incidentally, it was deemed legal on public land in (I think) 1988. We were there earlier than that however. It's not if on private land or if locked of course.

We had friends who rescued unbelievable items in the 1960s onwards such as whole virtually new hi-fi systems from dumpsters at the end of each academic year as students didn't want to ship them back home. At end of each year they regularly had brand new items still in boxes, clothing (sometimes with the receipts) still in the store carrier bags, furniture items (whole dining table sets) and particularly desks and swivel type office chairs.
It was quite outrageous how much was simply dumped.

It was the same after Christmas. I visited one day near new year and they had dozens of unopened Christmas gifts on their verandah which had come from dumpsters and a virtually new children's climbing frame.
Anything they couldn't find a use for went to the thrift store.

Here in the UK recently we built a new rainwater soak-away and had all the rubble from a skip (with permission).

It seems so stupid that it is illegal to take something from a skip.

I used to work in Belgravia - one day a colleague came back from lunch lugging a Persian carpet she had retrieved from a skip!