I am NEVER giving anything away again.

[Ohjakestopbeingatwat]

I’ve had it now with giving things away. I think I am just a twat magnet.

I put the children’s old wooden play market/kitchen thing up on Facebook, for free.

I put up photos and was very honest that it needs two new screws/wood glue as they have come loose and can’t be tightened, some of the paintwork is chipped, but if someone wants it, it would make a great up cycle project. If no one wanted it, it would go to the tip. But you know, it’s free and I know lots of people like a project.

Someone immediately said she wanted it and sent her husband to collect it a while later.

Then, all hell broke loose. She messaged me saying it was in a terrible state, the paint was chipped, the screws needed replacing - no shit Sherlock. That was the actual description.

She demanded that I come and pick it up. No. She kept on and on until I had to block her.

Half an hour later, her husband turned up again and threw it on my driveway, smashing it. So now, no one can have it to do up and it will have to go to the tip.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had shit like this. I don’t know how I attract these people. So never again. It’s the charity shop, or the tip.

Actually, we have a tip slot booked for this Saturday, we are about to start renovating our house.

I thought someone could make use of it. Lots of people up cycle wooden kitchen toys. It only needed two new screws on the canopy and a lick of paint.

I put on the ad that it would be good for an up cycle project.

Handbagcuriosity that video is amazing. Thanks for sharing.

I only once advertised something thing for free. It was lots of fabric. Nothing wrong with it, I was moving house and downsizing. I had envisaged dressmaking with it all but never got round to it. Someone contacted me saying they would be delighted to have it. Agreed a date to collect then told me they couldn’t get to my house. Asked if I would take it to them…..they lived miles away. No I wasn’t prepared to do that. I was moving house and absolutely did kit have the time for this.
The only thing I’ve done since is either take things to the charity shops or put them outside. When I’ve put things outside they have always been taken.

Yes, that's exactly what I did. Saw a mud kitchen that looked old and on it's last legs being given away for free.

I took it home, screwed in new screws to make it sturdy again and then painted it a lovely pale blue colour. It came up a treat and looked lovely!

When my kids had outgrown it, we gave it away to friends with 3 little ones.

This is a church I volunteer in too.
What a good idea! I’d happily eat the things that are out of date. It seems hypocritical to put on an event to help feed the community, but throw away perfectly good food.

Something is only worth what people are willing to pay.

I remember the time of the paint

Buckle in,it's a long one

Ds went through a pink/princess/girlie stage in his life and I'd painted his bedroom pale pink

Me being me,had bought waaayyy too much paint (I don't drive so overbought rather than going back to homebase twice) and his sister changed her mind on wanting pink herself so I had a lot left over

I saw a plea not long after I'd finished his room asking for pink paint to paint her dds room (big deal made out of being a skint single mum and the father didn't pay for his kids)

I answered and she immediately messaged to ask if I knew a lad called 'x my surname'

Nope,never heard of him

It turns out my family on my father's side who had fallen out long before I was born and I'd grown up not knowing who they where and this lad was the son of a cousin (who I'd never met and only vaguely knew he existed,i had no idea he'd got married or had kids) and she'd had 3 kids to him but they where not together (none of my business)

Fine,but what about the paint?

We arranged to meet outside specsavers (ds was due his eye test) and it was a boiling hot day as I lugged 5l of pink paint into town

She was a no show

Got a message-'sorry I forgot,could you drop it at mine at x day and y time?'

Fine,I went round (on the bus at my own expense) and could hear her screaming at someone and ignoring the door

I gave up,came home and stuffed it under the stairs

Got another message to say she'd come to mine on x day and y time to pick it up

At this point I just wanted shot of this paint and agreed

A prize for whoever guessed she never showed up so I took it to the tip

9 months later,she gets back in touch to tell me my uncle (who i met 3 times my whole life) was in a nursing home and I'd better go see him,she was pregnant to cousins ds again and oh,by the way,could she have the paint and baby chair that id advertised for free as 'we're family?' (Family?I may have shared a few drops of dna but I didn't know any of these people)

I said I wasn't going to see a stranger,blood or not,how nice your having a baby,(why when your already struggling with the 3 youve got?) I've taken the paint to the tip and what baby chair?I didn't have a baby chair for sale,my kids had long outgrown that stage

She went nuclear,stalked me,bad mouthed me all over town,blamed me for reporting her to social services (I didnt,i had no reason to) and told me I didn't have a grandad (my granddad brought me up,he meant the world to me and he died of dementia when i was 14,losing him was the most painful experience of my life,she claimed he didn't exist as none of the family had mentioned him to her,or showed her photoes of him,why would they?they never bothered with him when he was alive and only came sniffing round when he died)

She claimed i didn't have a grandad (God knows how she thought generations work) and was very nasty about this fact and that I was a liar,who bullshitted for attention and fun

Bloody loon,I never even met her in person

I was forced to block and ignore her and still do to this day,almost 16 years on

Lauren,if your reading this,do fuck off you nasty bitcha

Not free but I sold some brand new walking boots that just never fit on Vinted. Cue rude message because the shoe box wasn’t with them. I’d never mentioned or photographed the box, which I’d got rid of years ago. Apparently I’d ruined someone’s present.

we have a local Freecycle FB group. It works well as you get banned if you just take stuff and don’t offer. But my neighbour offers cheap stuff and then requests expensive items. She has plenty of money as well.

Jesus, that’s absolutely unhinged!

I had one - not quite as bad but (from the profile picture) an elderly lady wrote on our freecycle neighbourhood FB about 8.30pm one evening in winter - that she was absolutely desperate for a microwave. Hers had just blown up. She couldn't cook anything and she couldn't afford a new one. She was desperate. She really really laid it on thick.

So I knew we had a microwave in the garage that was in full working order - it was a £250 microwave barely used because the house we now live in has one built in and we bought it when we relocated and were in rented for 6months.

So I message her. I explain it's right at the back of the garage, I'm going to have to clear the garage out to get to it (we had so much stuff - boxes, furniture, cabinets all in the way we'd recently moved in) but I give her the brand/make and say if she wants it - it's hers free. I ask if I can give it to her on the weekend because of the amount of stuff in the garage which will take me a couple of hours to move and I have a baby/1yr old. But no she absolutely needs it tomorrow. She can't cook anything. So I'm like don't worry I will get in there for you and get it out. She says yes please, goes on about how desperate she is.

So there I am until gone 11pm at night - moving the entire contents of a house out of the garage to get this microwave. I clean it all up. Then I have to put everything back in the garage. It took me 3hours....I finally went to flopped at 1am - and I had work the next day.

Inbetween this we're organising a pick up time. I say I have to drop my child at nursery for 8.30am but will be back at 9am. She's desperate, she needs it earlier. I volunteer to take it to her on my way back from the nursery run or on my way to the nursery (so 8am'ish drop off). She says no - she'd prefer to come with her sister to our house. I'm thinking she's worried about security or something.

Fine. So I ask DH, who then rearranges his 8am - 9am meeting to be able to answer the door to her at some point between 8-9.

I'm genuinely thinking I'm helping out an old lady.

I get back from nursery run and she's not been. 10am she's still not been. I drop a message asking if she's ok.

Midday I get a message that she's been to argos to buy a microwave with her sister and she won't be needing it now.

Honestly I was so fucking angry I could barely breath. I never replied I was that angry!

We live in a nice area. There are cretins everywhere.

I agree. By the sounds of it seems like it was only fit for the bin. However, they shouldn't have been so rude.

These stories are insane. The worst I’ve had on Freecycle is people not turning up or rude demands for my address. Most of the time people are lovely, though… polite and grateful. I’ve received lots of things and given away lots of things. I’ve delivered some things and had some things delivered (in all instances offers to deliver were made, nobody has asked me or vice versa). The no-shows wind me up to the point of taking things to the charity shop instead sometimes, but overall I’ve had good experiences. The accounts here beggar belief. Too bad that stuff ends up at the tip but, gosh, who can blame you!?

I gave a cd rack and cd cupboard away - nice quality though old fashioned. Lovely couple came to fetch for, they begged via message, the old people’s home the wife worked at - long chat about being a carer and so happy to be able to make their rec room cosy for the old ones. I went and dug out all CDs and DVDs I thought may be suitable for older folk whilst they waited. I was pleased to think this is where the stuff went. I messaged a couple of months after to say matching TV cabinet was now available if they wanted it (free) and got the answer thanks but their house was now done so not needed, but the cd cabinet/racks looked great in their front room after decorating. Now I didn’t mind when advertising where the stuff went - but to spend an hour explaining where it wasn’t really going is perverse- especially when you later just forget the fibs you told in your desperation to get stuff!

From my experience Freecycle has a much nicer community of people that fb

My local FB free stuff page explicitly states that the objective is to keep stuff out of landfill.
I've given away loads of stuff that wouldn't sell in a charity shop, due to having minor damage or signs of use.
I gave away a load of garden stuff once, including pots that had had soil in them.
I also got rid of a rug that was covered in dog hair. The woman was delighted with it & it went in her garage where her dogs slept. I gave away a nearly-new plastic dog bed that had a corner chewed by my pup.
The woman sent me a photo of her elderly dog making very good use of it.

These are things that would have gone to landfill.

Free pages are for stuff that someone else can use, but that the owner couldn't necessarily sell, or donate to charity.

I’m surprised so many people are saying that your kitchen was only fit for the tip! 2 screws, a bit of wood glue, and a lick of paint (which is optional really)? And that’s only good for the tip? No wonder we have problems with waste!

The worst experience I’ve had was when I was selling a rattan and glass outdoor table and chair set. I put the measurements online and made it clear that it would need to be a van to pick up.
Some guy messages me, I’ll be there on x date at x time. Doesn’t show. So he messages a few days later, I’ll be there on y date at y time. I carried everything out of the back garden into the front.
He finally shows in a large car (like a suv but still a car) at y+3hours with no cash on him wanting to do a bank transfer. So I direct him to the closest cash machine. He comes back, gives me the money, and surprise surprise, it won’t fit in his car. He said do you have any rope so he can tie it to the roof? I said no. He asks for a screwdriver to take off the top, so I get him one, and he then tries to take the screws out, snaps the head off one meaning the top is now loose from the base. “Oh, it’s broken, I don’t want it now”. I was furious. I was like “so you’ve messed me around twice, arrived late, BROKE MY STUFF (!!!) and now you don’t want it?!”
He demanded his money back and left. I wish I’d have let him pay bank transfer because I was so mad I don’t think I’d have refunded him. I had to lug everything back into the back garden. We ended up asking if the new owners wanted it leaving and they said yes. It put me off selling anything else. I hate marketplace.

😂

Chipped paint and replacing screws on a wooden item doesn’t mean it’s “fit for the bin”. The OP was very clear on her description that it was an upcycling project, that’s something I’d have happily done to avoid more landfill.

Yep, someone would have taken it to do up. Loads of people do that. There are Pinterest posts dedicated to that particular style of toy and how to up cycle them!

I’ve done it before on wooden toys.

It’s such a waste to chuck something over a couple of screws with the threads gone so a canopy is a bit wobbly and some chipped paint. A couple of hours and it could have been lovely again.

It’s not like I’m too lazy for the tip either - we are going Saturday as clearing the house before we start renovating (it’s now in the pile for the tip). My children are now to big for it (the kitchen, not the tip).

I just put it up for free incase someone wanted it to do up.

I have a suspicion people do this deliberately, get something shoddy for free, then try to shame you into giving them money.... I think its a scam.

I once had someone pick up a broken chest of drawers for his son. He was delighted with it and was going to refurbish it. I just wonder if some people don’t have the skills or patience to fix or refurbish. They just expect something new and pristine for nothing and have it delivered into the bargain!

I can only give away things after a good period of rest from the bat-shittery!

I’ve had the usual delivery requests, but some highlights:

4 puzzles, very good condition. DD double counted the pieces but I made an error and one had a piece missing. I received a photo with the empty space circled and a question what was I going to do?

three boxes of books (about 200) I provided photos but drew the line at providing a list of title and author.

a solid oak dinining table, when photographed the chairs were in the photo, I made it clear chairs were not available. I was aggressively pursued for the chairs for weeks.

a huge L shaped sofa - where a tiny young woman came to pick it up in a van with her dad who couldn’t lift anything. Not only did my DH and DC have to help shift the damn thing into the van, they then agreed to go to her house to help get it out the van. When they arrived she was 5 floors up with no lift 😮

She was however very sweet and delighted with the sofa and so grateful but OMG!

about 30% of my giveaways go without a hitch; 20% I receive something in return (thank you note/chocs/flowers) but a good 50% are waaaay more trouble than they’re worth.

I have concluded if people want great detail about condition, lists of authors, etc etc they are often resellers - basically just cheeky chancers - seriously if you can arsed - charging a few quid even if it’s low often stops these chancers

I was quite busy yesterday evening, so only really skim read replies then.

I’ve only just seen this one. Wow. That’s probably the worst one I’ve heard!

“OK Sheila - I’ll refund you 50% of what you paid for it!”