My motherlode

I'm so pumped about the haul that I got today I feel like I need to convey the experience to others who can appreciate how good it actually was. I could scrap EWaste for another ten years and never get a load this good again.

So, last night I responded to the following ad on Craigslist:

"EWaste- 5 monitors, no computers, 2 TVs and a printer."



I'm thinking CRTs as people rarely give away flat panels. Anyway, five of them along with the TVs are worth a drive to me. Especially when it turns out to be less than 3 miles from where I drop my wife off at work.

So, I reply to the ad and end up scheduling a meeting time for this morning. I get to the house and I see a huge dumpster and a moving pod in the driveway. I'm thinking as I park that I have to scope out what's in that dumpster without being too blatant. As I pass by I do so with a pretty wide berth enabling me to spot a few metal items in there without jumping on it to see over the sides. I'm thinking I'll ask if I can snag them when I finish packing up the Ewaste. So, I get to the garage and I notice 5 flat panels sitting on the floor. First thought that I have is that their broken. People rarely give away working flat panels. So the lady begins to show me what I can take- The monitors a couple of laser printers (things are looking a little better) and a TV. So, I'm thinking that, if the printers work, it's an alright score- I'm certainly not losing money anyway. Then she asks me- "Do you know how to remove hard drives from computers?" Sure I do. "Okay, follow me". We go into the house,(drop dead gorgeous house BTW) she leads me into huge room where there sits 18 computer towers, 2 laptops, 14 more flat panels ( a few of them 21"), 6 more laser printers, 2 UPS, keyboards and mouses out of the ass, 7 old cell phones, 4 TiVos, a couple of routers and a couple of switches, a 32" CRT television and a TVphone (whatever the heck that is). She tells me if I remove the hard drives on site I can have the entire room full of equipment. My heart stops right about then because before she finishes the sentence it occurs to me that I didn't bring any tools. So, I ask her if there was a screwdriver I could borrow. She says that she didn't think so. Needless to say I'm cussing myself up one side and down the other. And then it dawns on me- About 2 months ago I put a few tools in the side door pocket of my van for this very purpose. I ended up getting lucky because there was a screwdriver along with the dikes and lineman's pliers. Anyway I begin to go to town on the computers. Then the owner of the house comes in while I'm pulling the hard drives and asks me to follow him. He takes me to crawl area and tells me that I can have the 5 towers in there too. It's about this time that I start to realize I ain't never going to have a score like this again. So, I muffle my giggles as I'm pulling the towers out of the crawl space when I spot in the corner a pile of Romex- 2 unopened pkgs-250 ft of 12/3 and 5 open bunches of 14/3. All in all about 1,300 ft of Romex. So, I begin to debate with myself- should I ask? A part of me says don't be greedy. The other part says it doesn't hurt anyone to ask. Guess which part of me gets heeded. So, I ask the cat if he has any plans for the Romex. He didn't know what I was talking about. So, I showed it to him. "Oh that, yeah, you can have that".

Anyway, to put it all in a nutshell- I didn't have enough room in my van for those metal items that I spotted in the dumpster on the way in.

Oh yeah, the lady who showed me to all of the equipment? She runs a business dealing with estates and foreclosures. Says that she will keep my number and call me next time she runs into some equipment. I let her know that I also handle appliances and metal.

That was a good score, it's always nice when things come out better than it first looked to be.

Way to go man.

Wow wow wow, great day. Do your self a favor and take pictures, Mike.

Great score !