craigslist freebies... - Page 4

Haven't posted on this thread for a while. Most of the time I'm out of position to respond to CL freebie pick ups; too far away to make a run into town for the item, not having the free time, not having the hauling logistics but I look a couple of times a day anyway. I needed to pick up some eggs out at the bro's and SiL's place even though their hens are kind of on the summer doldrums, drop some stuff off there for storage and pick up some SS and alum breakage I had there because I'm going to do a little run (all my runs are little!!) to the new yard just down the road before work sometime this week to clear out some bulkier items of these two metals.

Saw a CL freebie ad yesterday that had some light steel shelves (not interested), a SS sink and brass breakage faucet still attached, and a dishwasher. Not a big fan on dishwashers because they're a pain to get into the back seat of the Buick and most don't have much scrap value but hey, if its there, I'll clean the place up for the people. It ended up that this place was on one of the ways to the bro's so I decide to stop by but doubted the stuff was still there. Right before I left saw another CL ad for some other stuff on the way to the first place so decided to check that one out as well.

I just don't get to the sw corner of the metro much and never have liked the street lay outs down there. If you don't know the main arterials a guy ends up doing lots of half loops (by the late 70s in this city, the developers figured out they could get x more houses per street if they eliminated most streets going through more than a couple blocks or so). I had my 16-year old oldest son along with me for a needed father-son talk (had been giving mom some serious grief today so half an hour ride a good time for some talking). We pull up at the first place and the scene is a little sketchy for me. No "free stuff" sign, diminished pile sitting behind a truck parked on the street. Basically what was left was a small chain saw, a long heavy extension cord, and some bigger steel pieces. Tried to knock on the house door but no one answered. I remembered the chain saw on the list so felt pretty confident taking that and I could always have someone like the law look up the ad. Really wanted the extension cord but couldn't remember it form the list so passed (it ended up that it was, bummer!).

The second place was nearly on the edge of the city and a long block of similar houses without a decent sized shade tree anywhere on the street (this block is probably built within the last decade, maybe less). Low and behold, coming down the street I see both the SS sink and the dishwasher sitting on one side of the driveway looking soooooo out of place in the rest of the semi-sterile everything looks the same world. Sitting on the top of the DW is a 30 inch narrow piece of Cu piping with brass fittings, a nice bonus. Sink goes into the trunk no problem but it had been a while since I had wedged a dw into the back seat. So it took about 5+ minutes to get it done with the kid trying to help out (first time he had seen a dw in the back seat). We're just succeeding when the neighbors come home and pull into their driveway which I'm just cleared by the little bit. Kind of awkward because I'm sure most of the people on this block have probably never seen a scrapper pick up curbco. I wanted to tell the neighbor to thank the people for me for keeping the stuff out to get picked up but he dallied getting out of his family mobile so I decided it was time to skedaddle. With a wave we were off and the homeowner can take down his CL ad (which he hasn't yet). I'm sure the neighbors talked about the "desperateness" they had just seen. Got to give a plain vanilla neighborhood something to talk about...