So I take out tons of trash to the dumpster...

and I didn't even finish dumping the crap, and some mexicans were digging through the trash. WTF are they doing going through the trash!!!

I just don't get it..

I watched the guy pull out a pair of greasy and I mean, worked on a friends car greasy soaked fingers cut off gloves... a couple cisco boxes I used to haul the trash out .... I need to go look and see what else they are pulling out...

Its bad enough when they go through it every week looking for bottles and cans at early hours of the morning waking everyone up...

Isn't there city ordinances for this sort of crap?

Its bad enough when they go through it every week looking for bottles and cans at early hours of the morning waking everyone up...

Isn't there city ordinances for this sort of crap?

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The right answer is- That depends. An old man in the neighborhood goes around trashpicking, getting metal and various other junk. I cleaned out stuff, then stopped by his yardsale a few months later to find my kitchen table stripped, sanded, and refinished. I wanted to buy it back. The issue is when they make a mess. This guy is a real POS. He breaks glass in the street, just to get the metal. He cuts lamp cords off, and actually shattered a ceramic lamp against my fence to get the whole cord, leaving glass/ceramic/ other trash everywhere. All at 5:30 am.

Cops respond to my call. I provide Name/address/plate # of truck, etc.
He grew up in town,knows everybody. We can't do anything, he's an old man.

Week 2 of cleanout- same guy. trash everywhere. Bang, bang, bang 5am.
Get out of bed, see its him. Go over to his house, POUND THE LIVING F out of his door, waking up his wife. Gave my business card, told her when he gets home, have him come talk to me.

So, the cops come, and tell me I can't knock on his door because he made a mess in front of my house.

His wife called the cops on me for waking her up-
Week 3- Videoed him breaking glass in the street and leaving it. also baited a garbage can with copper pipe from my plumbing days, and have him on tape cutting each and every bag open with a razor knife.
Go to mayors office(small town) Show mayor tape. Mayor informs police officers in my area to do their job. He goes to court, I appear with tape.
He pays fine.

This is where it really gets good- I go to work after this, and a guy in HVAC dept is complaining about some guy that dragged his father in law to court.

That woulld be me! I showed him the tape. He agreed, and said he would have done the exact same thing.

as NJTomatoguy said going through garbage on its own is not a problem, I would rather somebody rescue things from the garbage and give them a second life than have them wind up in a land fill or something. its only a problem if they make a mess or a lot of noise too early or late in the day.

If he's just rooting though your trash, not bothering anyone, I don't see the problem. It's called "ghetto recycling"/

If, as k1 notes, they're causing an inconvenience to the owners of the dumpster or their tenants...f*ck 'em.

Just be glad you don't have to dig through trash...

Evan! said:

If...they're causing an inconvenience to the owners of the dumpster or their tenants...f*ck 'em.

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Ya might want to buy em dinner first...

Evan! said:

If he's just rooting though your trash, not bothering anyone, I don't see the problem. It's called "ghetto recycling"/

If, as k1 notes, they're causing an inconvenience to the owners of the dumpster or their tenants...f*ck 'em.

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So you don't have a problem someone going through your trash at some ungodly hour of the morning waking you up thus interrupting your homebrew REM sleep?

I think as far as the legal side of that goes dumpsters are private property owned by the dumpster company and rented by who ever is using it. but trash at the curb in front of someones house is public domain, except some cities have passed laws against people taking recycling from in front of houses. of course there are anti noise and littering laws too.

Our trash pickers are very polite - I asked the nice young man to not hit mine till after 8 am because it sets the dogs off and my neighbors complain about the barking. He said he would hit mine last. Never a mess, so I don't mind. In fact, I never have to call for large item pickup (old mattresses, dead refrigerators etc...) it all just goes away.

One man's junk is another man's treasure. I won't dig, but if I see something cool near the top of a dumpster or next to one I'm not too proud to pick it up. People throw away some stuff that could definately benefit someone, and in the case of poor people they can use stuff that we wouldn't even consider touching. Deal with the issue if they are causing a ruckus first thing in the morning, but otherwise I wouldn't sweat it.

In Germany, they would have Sperr Mull Days where people would put the big stuff out on the street. In most cases it was gone before the trash folks ever showed up.

I've never had an issue with people dumpster diving. I've thrown things out that I would love to give away that I don't have the time or ability to. Now if it was a chocolate eclair...

Professor Frink said:

Now if it was a chocolate eclair...

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As long as its on the top...

I used to live in a college town. Students leaving town leave some great stuff. Thats how I have my current TV, entertainment center, computer desk etc. They would even dump cars with nothing wrong with them because daddy bought them a new one.

I dumpster dive If I need/see something.

I saved around $200 on the chicken coop doing so.
I got $160 worth of greenhouse staging that way as well.

It was move out day last weekend, so people were throwing away all kinds of good ****. In fact they don't even put it in the dumpster because I think they know someone will take it. I netted a new and I mean looks un-used toaster oven, 12 nice pint glasses and a few mugs to, a dolly (yes they were throwing away the ****ing dolly... in the dumpster) and a new mini-fridge.

Our town picks up the trash behind the houses using oversized golf carts for just this reason.
However I see the recyclers driving around the Cleveland neighborhoods every trash day in their beat up trucks looking for scrap metal. They appear to be fairly clean about it as I havn't seen too much trash strewn about.

Craig

Interesting stories, all. I don't think i've ever come across any trashpickers like that. If I didn't already shred all my bills and junk mail I might cry foul for invasion of privacy.

I've always been good about recycling even when I lived in an area without curb pick-up, and I'm a bit of a packrat when it comes to building materials, so trash pickers wouldn't find anything of value in my trash anyway. That said, I've picked up a number of things from other people's trash: laserjet printer in need of minor repair, couch, chairs, lumber, etc. That's a bit different than digging IN a trash can, though. ew.

I have been in college towns where move out days would net someone some really nice furniture!

If anyone's interested in getting rid of stuff, check out Freecycle.org. You sign up to a local "forum" where people post stuff they want or don't want. I unloaded a couple of aquariums where the people came to me and picked them up. Completely free and some good stuff comes along.

Although, lately people are getting rid of a lot of puppies in my area. Spay/neuter people!!!

Brew-Happy said:

I have been in college towns where move out days would net someone some really nice furniture!

If anyone's interested in getting rid of stuff, check out Freecycle.org. You sign up to a local "forum" where people post stuff they want or don't want. I unloaded a couple of aquariums where the people came to me and picked them up. Completely free and some good stuff comes along.

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Oh, I forgot about freecycle.org! I gave away a piano (a great big antique that weighed about 500 pounds!) through freecycle, and found a clothes dryer that works great also through free cycle! I got an aquarium yesterday, too.

I recycle everything, so our entire family puts out less than 1/2 bag of trash every other week. Trash pickers would only find a few non-recyclables in our trash!

Aside from the privacy issues, I don't have a problem with people "sorting" trash as long as they don't make a mess or create a noise problem. If they can salvage items that are going to a landfill anyway, I consider that a good thing.

dumpsters have warning and such all over them, but that doesn't mean people are going to follow them... i think most of the warning just say that the dumpster isn't a play area and I'm sure it's just enough legal jargon on there so that if they dump a person into the trash truck and mash them up into pieces it doesn't hold the trash company or it's employees liable.

unless they are really "harming" anyone, i'd leave it go... just putting the shoes on from your standpoint, yes having people root through the dumpsters outside of my place would cheese me off and I agree that it's annoying and makes you think, "WTF ARE YOU DOING?"

then again, maybe they are dumpster diving b/c they have no choice.

we've gotten a few nice pieces of furniture from people moving out of our townhouse complex, you wouldn't believe the stuff they trash.

if we're listing dumpster finds, the bars, cranks, tires, pedals, shifters, derailleurs, seat, and sprockets on my bicycle all came from a dumpster. and this wasn't junk, the seat is around $120 the cranks around $300 the shifters as a set around $350 I think. But all this stuff came from a really high end bike store that caters to ridiculously wealthy people who treat a bike as a status symbol and only care about having the most expensive parts.

The last place I lived, it was illegal to trash-pick. We had separate cans for recyclables. Garbage pickup was contracted to private companies, but the cops backed them up.

In Oregon, putting your trash in someone else's bin is "Theft of services". Taking stuff out is equally illegal. most cities.

The real issues are timing, noise & making a mess.

that sounds like last night at my place. Me and the Liquid Hero team were out cleaning some cornies and then making some Applewine. While doing this we consumed proper amounts of cheap american beer(name not to be mentioned, but I cant wait until we start drinking our own suds). I put my recycling bin out and minutes later the "scavengers" as I call them were up looking at us and staring at our carboys and cornies that were sitting out on my driveway like there were freaking gold. I feel bad to some degree but at the same point i would rather they not drive around my area. Maybe its the fact that my recycling bin is usually overflowing with beer can/bottles.

An update..

I went to pickup my gf from the train station and when we got back, everything EVERYTHING i tossed in that nasty azz dumpster is gone.

I should have just carried it to their apartment for them and saved them the effort of crawling in and liberating all the useless crap. I'm not joking when I say it was trash...
I kept the usefull trash and it's still sitting on my deck. I have one BMX bike from 1999 that a buddy gave me and I already have 4 more sitting in my spare room. I'm going to give it away along with the clothes sitting here on the floor I no longer fit in. However they are going to be given to either homeless shelter or good will. Not the dumpster divers of Santa Clarita.

The next time I dump stuff I'm going to pour old motor oil over the stuff.

BTW: the apartments we are living in are 1400$/month... so they aren't cheap.

If someone can get more mileage out of your discarded stuff, why shouldn't they? I have no issue with that. Having spent some time in Australia in remote Aboriginal communities taught me a lot about stretching material goods to their very end, when both resources and money are hard to come by. We're entirely too wasteful in this country.

As long as it's respectful and they clean up after themselves, I wouldn't mind.

My big worry would be identity theft. There are people who go through trash looking for bills, receipts, statements, etc. looking to get the information they need to perpetrate identity theft. When I was a teenager, I knew a kid who was an l337 hacker who would dumpster dive into store dumpsters and get all the carbon copies of the old credit cards. I don't think he ever used them, he just bragged that he had done it. That's why I have a shredder!

BADS197 said:

An update..

I went to pickup my gf from the train station and when we got back, everything EVERYTHING i tossed in that nasty azz dumpster is gone.

I should have just carried it to their apartment for them and saved them the effort of crawling in and liberating all the useless crap. I'm not joking when I say it was trash...
I kept the usefull trash and it's still sitting on my deck. I have one BMX bike from 1999 that a buddy gave me and I already have 4 more sitting in my spare room. I'm going to give it away along with the clothes sitting here on the floor I no longer fit in. However they are going to be given to either homeless shelter or good will. Not the dumpster divers of Santa Clarita.

The next time I dump stuff I'm going to pour old motor oil over the stuff.

BTW: the apartments we are living in are 1400$/month... so they aren't cheap.

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WTF? Why would you pour motor oil over it? What inconvenience are these guys causing you? I mean, the only problem I could see would be identity theft as orpheus mentions, but that's on YOU...it's your responsibility to shred sensitive stuff, because dumpster diving is always a danger. Past that, unless they're making a mess and/or causing a big racket, I see no reason why you should have a problem with them re-using your trash.

We have a few people in our city that go around looking for returnable bottles and cans. They have blocked both myself and my neighbor into our driveways on seperate occasions while sifting through our recycling bins. I dislike them because they are rude but i am always nice to them.

Sensitive stuff = wood burning stove.

Dumpster diving = less landfill

I got a 1973 Fender Rhodes 77 key analog electric piano in very nice condition out of a dumpster. Sealed case with all the legs. Only work was replacing a couple of dampers and retuning the forks. If there is no harm then there really is no foul.

Strewing stuff all over the place is cause for action though.

The only problem I have with the dumpster divers is when they let the lid slam early in the AM.

If I worked as hard as these guys I'd be a millionaire.

Evan! said:

WTF? Why would you pour motor oil over it? What inconvenience are these guys causing you? I mean, the only problem I could see would be identity theft as orpheus mentions, but that's on YOU...it's your responsibility to shred sensitive stuff, because dumpster diving is always a danger. Past that, unless they're making a mess and/or causing a big racket, I see no reason why you should have a problem with them re-using your trash.

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I have no problem with someone dumpster diving to make good use of stuff I no longer deem useful.
However I have a big problem with someone tearing apart trash bags and strewing about the junk out of trash can all over the area.

It is because of the second type of person that many cities make it illegal to trash pick. Its unfortunate that some people behave that way but it seems to be quite common.

I do try to give anything that might still be usable to an organization like Goodwill.

Craig