why do people think second hand is manky?

[WhereAreMyAirpods]

Why do people think second hand things are manky/dirty/unsafe? Have just read a comment on another thread about second hand jewellery not being safe because it's dirty.

Really? Are there really lots of people out there who think just because something has been in someone else's house for a while, it's unclean? Do these people not own washing machines or have a bottle of soapy liquid to clean things with?

Sometimes it feels like some sort of weird need to prove themselves.

My 21 year old niece became pregnant with her boyfriend. They have very little money and she gave up her waitress job when she fell pregnant. I offered them some of DC’s baby clothes/sleeping bags (all immaculate) and by the look on her face you’d think I’d offered her a bag of pigeon shit.

I’ve never offered again but my much better off friends are always really appreciative of the hand me downs they regularly receive from me!

how do you buy second hand beauty products. Unless the person kept the box, how would you know if the cream has expired. and if its something like a pristine eyeshadow palette, you can still get an eye infection if someone has used it once... I am intrigued cos i love luxury makeup and there seems to be plenty of women out there who buy mountains of makeup and never wear it. Seems like a waste!

@Bubblebubblebah this is already happening. The last decade / two decades even of fast fashion have really had an impact on pickings for people dealing in second hand textiles!

I grew up in second hand clothing, my sister and I are close in age and we were about the sane size. The family across the road had twin daughters who were a couple of years older and we got their cast offs. When my DCs were small I would buy second hand clothing for them, my then MIL was mortified!

@Bananalanacake have you experienced ‘exploding Pyrex’ ?
I love a bit of vintage Pyrex but after experiencing this and seeing the damage it caused I won’t have it in the house any more!

I love second hand

my idea of a good day is a rummage round the charity shops and I love a look on ebay

my kids are the same-our motto is ‘why pay full price?’

however dps ex point blank refuses to even think about second hand-shes never bought on eBay,never been to a car boot nor gone in a charity shop

in her head,nobody has touched the (say) clothes,has never tried them on,never ordered,worn and then sent them back or bought but never worn-if it’s been owned by someone else,she refuses to have it

My dp once told me that her dad bought a second hand toy bratz car (which hadn’t been played it-it was new but not in the box and from the charity shop) and she binned it then bought another one,brand new from the shop

she once had the chance of buying a kitchen table from a friend but refused to buy it for £50 instead she spent over £300 on the same table from the shop

she got in thousands of pounds of debt buying tat just so she could say it was new

what a bloody waste

@WhereAreMyAirpods I think some people are just lazy and bag it all up for someone else to deal with so it doesn’t fill up their bin.

We get bags of damp clothes, dirty underwear and nappies, dirty coated in thick dog hair. It always comes in a tied, black bin bag too.

I don't buy used pants, I leave that to people with a certain niche interest, but everything else is fair game.
What I do for a job, involves being in very close contact with peoples nether's on a regular basis and I have been covered in every known secretion the human body can produce repeatedly. So I can't get excited by something that may or may not be on something I buy second hand.
The vast majority of my possessions are second hand, car, pets, furniture, curtains, bedding, clothes, books, bags, phone, laptop, artwork, kitchen stuff and ornaments etc.
I will buy new if I need it or really like it and can't find it second hand.

I can kind of understand it. We get a lot of child stuff secondhand and had loads of secondhand baby stuff and it was time consuming sorting the manky from the lovely. I've had all sorts including maternity/nursing bras, washable breast pads, most of my maternity clothes etc.

The problem stuff: huge bags of baby or kid clothes, some with encrusted food or stains on. Took ages to sort out, had to find a way of recycling the stuff that couldn't be cleaned.
The baby bath that turned out not to be safe - balanced on edges of bath but the plastic had a large crack in it. That meant a trip to the tip to get rid of it.
The play mat and gym that was absolutely covered in cat hair. It wasn't machine washable and I spent ages trying to hoover it off before realising I was getting nowhere. That went to the tip too.

So I resent being used as a dumping ground for others' stuff. I do pass on secondhand stuff to others but only things in good condition I'd be happy to continue using myself.

What I do for a job, involves being in very close contact with peoples nether's on a regular basis and I have been covered in every known secretion the human body can produce repeatedly.

Oh wow, so you used to work at Poundland too then?

People like this, who use donations as bins, are grim. To a lesser extent, people who donate items in very poor condition, like stained clothing or toys that haven't been wiped.

😂

I snorted

Oh wow, so you used to work at Poundland too then?

I could be tempted if their employees get a discount ?

I'm ok with second hand but it's such an effort to find decent things. I've posted about this in a bit of rage before ... but charity shops seem to have this new thing of arranging clothing by colour on rails all crammed in very closely together, rather than by size or type of garment. So you have to do a lot of searching and hope you come across something you like, whereas if buying new you can search and filter.

I bought lots of second hand bundles for my children especially when they were toddlers and didn't care what they were wearing. My grown up dc buy a lot from De-Pop and vintage sales and end up giving a lot of it away because it's not up to scratch.

I'm also happy to risk buying a cake from a school cake sale even though I don't know the state of the kitchen it came from! The same can be said of any food you buy from anywhere tbh.

I think those people probably just assume that everyone is as dirty as they are. It's clear from the threads on whether or not to remove your shoes in the house that there are a lot of filthy people on this forum who can't even be bothered to clean their carpets regularly so I dread to think what other filth they're happy to wallow in.

People associate second hand with manky, because it often is.

Ask anyone who works in a charity shop about the donations that come in

I went to a clothes swap, where you bring in clothing that gets put up on a hanger for people to just take away again if they like it. No cost (apart from entrance fee).

The volunteers were rushed off their feet hanging all this clothing up, but they could have done without going through stuff to check it was clean. FFS, if you are going to bring stuff to something like a clothes swap, make sure it is clean. There was a pile behind a table that had clothing with chewing gum stuck to it, and I saw at least two dirty nappies with it all, and broken toys. It was meant to be clothing only.

Saying that, during my gothic days, most of my clothing was second hand and I rarely had a problem with it. All clean etc because people do tend to value the feedback they get on eBay etc. Not so much when you are just dumping crap outside a charity shop.

@WhereAreMyAirpods
the Crown Jewels are quite old i wonder if they are ‘manky’ 😭
exteme example perhaps but don’t people think about antique items ….? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don't get it either. Surely it's dirty as soon as you've used it yourself. I can't get het up about it. Nor the idea that people might have touched brand new things in a shop. So? Who cares. It must be exhausting to worry so much about germs TBH.

But then, my own hygiene standards are pretty low so maybe I just assume that other people's are probably higher than mine/don't care if they are equal to mine?

My mum in her 70’s is fine if it’s second hand from someone she knows. But if it’s a complete stranger it’s a definite no, think she likes to know what conditions the item have lived in 😂

Hmm. Certainly not knickers, underpants or trousers. DS was given lots of trackies from friends. Their children werenpresably not potty trained because the smell of wee filtered through when they were body warm.

Personally I wouldn't want a dress or blouse into which someone else's pits had sweated. Certainly not shoes - or socks.

The DC had tons of cast off from friends - not a problem. We had a bouncer and moses basket given to us. Great. Y friends and I passed around a maternity coat, some work dresses for years.

I'm not keen on 2nd hand furniture due to a worry about wood worm - unless it comes from a reputable dealer. Similarly rugs, soft furnishings re moth larvae.

When dc outgrew pram, cot, high chair, stair gates I called the local SS dept and was snottily told that their clients were only provided with brand new items. The investment bank director and his wife were grateful for them.

My friend's husband refused point blank to buy a secondhand bed, even when they were stone broke. Because of him they had to get into more debt by buying one with a credit card. He said it made him cringe to think someone else had slept on the bed, what acts they may have done on it, what bodily fluids maybe have been spilled on it ... so unhygienic etc.

This same man has ben perfectly happy throughout his entire marriage to sleep in hotel beds that have been previously slept on not by one person or a couple, but THOUSANDS of strangers!

Illogical.

Plenty of people do keep stuff in really unsuitable environments though.

Fine if someone is having a go through of their wardrobe and picks out a few things that they haven't worn in a while, but have been properly stored with other stuff in the wardrobe. Not so fine if it's baby stuff that's been in a mouldy shed for several years waiting for the potential of another baby to use it for - but then during a clear out, that manky stuff goes to the charity shop. How many threads have I seen on here asking how to get mould out of pushchairs, carrycots etc?

The other problem with chucking stuff in the bin is the council - infrequent pickups, no space in bin etc. So I can imagine stuff ends up in the charity shop instead.

My grandparents and their parents were 'wardrobe dealers' aka clothiers aka Totters. They bought 2nd hand 'schmutter', jewelry, furs, feathers, bags, shoes etc and sold it on for weddings, funerals, stage productions etc. They bought off some famous people and sold it on or exported to Africa especially Victorian finery. Their shop in Southwark was a real Old Curiosity Shop. It's obviously in the blood because I love preloved stuff, car boots and charity shop finds.

I think it’s a mid 20th century attitude that’s hung around - the era that gave us white goods, hoovers, fitted kitchens, plastic and biological washing power.

We got used to modern and new, and hand me downs felt pre WW2 and reminded people of pre welfare state poverty.