To think a skip is easier than the general fucking public

[bussteward]

I’m on a major declutter and obviously can give bags of things to charities – but the ones near me are small and can’t accept limitless donations or certain items, eg opened bags of nappies, boring baby things like mountains of vests, or “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” type stuff. Fine.

But JFC trying to give stuff away via Olio/Freecycle/Marketplace etc is a full-time job dealing with the hard of thinking. No matter how clear the ad stating the pick-up times available – and Olio even has a rule you’re supposed to mention a time in your first message – you get conversations that go:

Available?
Yes, until 1pm today or I can be around any time tomorrow if you let me know when so I don’t have to wait in all day.
OK, this afternoon.
As the ad states, I can’t do after 1pm today. Please let me know a time that suits you tomorrow.
Tomorrow afternoon.
OK, I’m not going to wait in all afternoon: so let’s say 3pm.
::tumbleweed silence::

It’s like pulling teeth.

Then there was the woman who did specify a time, forgot to come, rearranged, messaged once she was an hour late to say her car had broken down, never confirmed a new time then turned up randomly three weeks later when the item had long gone trying to give me a box of cat food. I do not have a cat.

Every pick up time comes and goes without a ring on the doorbell, then the message comes: just waiting for my partner to come home with the car then I’ll set off. OK?! But you said 9am and it’s now 9.30 and you’ve not set off, so that’s an entirely different time and I have plans.

Obviously I am not going to throw everything in a skip or set fire to it all but it would be easier. Can’t put it all out the front with a sign saying “free” because it’s constantly pouring down. Can’t specify “no fucking idiots, what’s wrong with you people” on the ad. I don’t have an AIBU because I’m NOT unreasonable: it is the people who are unreasonable, aren’t they?

Another PP mentioned the British Heart Foundation...I phoned them and asked if they wanted a dining room table, six chairs and a lockable corner display cabinet. Obviously free. All in good condition, no marks, smoke free environment etc...so 2 blokes turn up and I say 'oh hi, you've come to pick up the furniture?' 'Er no, not necessarily love...we've gotta check it all out first aint we eh?' Righto...

so they then proceed to spend 30 -35 minutes, minutely inspecting all items as though they were valuing antiques! Taking an inbreath between clenched teeth, hands on hips, then crossing of the arms, shaking of heads, muttering 'dunno if this will sell?' etc and asking daft questions such as 'does the cabinet have a key love?' (it's in the fucking lock mate)

When they did decide to take the items it was with a begrudging attitude as if to say 'I'm doing you a MASSIVE favour here and you must be grovelling on the floor when saying thank you'. It was fucking free! as good as new and would be perfect for someone needing something in a their first house or something. Never again.

OMG I absolutely 100% feel your pain. Every four or five months I give a certain something away. I advertise them FOR FREE on the facebook page of our little market town. The town stretches about three by four miles across. I live a mile and a half from the edges of it in a little hamlet.

When people contact me to say 'I'd like one or two of these please.' I get a list of the people who want them, (usually 6 to 7 people,) and then to be honest, I designate part of an afternoon (2 hours-ish,) to go and drop them off myself at their homes/by their side door /behind their wheelie bin etc.. (Unless they are in and I hand it to them.) They are all within one to three miles of one another usually.

I know it seems mad giving stuff away and then dropping off to the people themselves, but like you @bussteward , I've had so many people saying they're coming, and then just not turning up, that it wastes FAR more time than spending 2 hours doing it myself.

Like you say, quite often, half an hour after the time they're supposed to be coming, they'll text to say, oh, I'm going to be about an hour late.

Or sometimes they won't text at all, and I end up contacting them an hour after they should be here, and they say 'oh, was that supposed to be this morning? Oh I'll try and get there soon.' By early to mid afternoon they message me to say not going to be able to make it today, and will try tomorrow.

When I say I might not be in tomorrow, they say 'when will you be in?' So I will then say, 'all right then, Thursday afternoon between three and five ...' 'Oh OK' they say 'I'll see you then 4:00 o'clock Thursday afternoon.' 4.00 o'clock comes and goes, and then at 5.00pm they are still not here. So I message and say 'you coming still.?' THEN it's like 'Oh, I don't think I can make it. Probably best off just giving it to someone else...'

As I say, me actually driving around 5 to 7 houses within a 2-3 mile radius, (and only 3 to 5 miles from me,) and dropping the stuff off on the doorstep, or behind the fence, or behind the wheelie bin is a lot less stressful for me. Trying to wait for them all to come around to my home - all at different times, and days, and knowing half may not turn up when they say, (if at ALL!) is WAAAAAY more stressful than me delivering the stuff! I will often pick up a few bits from town too, to kill 2 birds with one stone.

Maybe some wouldn't want to do it, but it works for me.

Urgh I hate binning things! I hate seeing perfectly good things slung in a skip / tip (and have definitely skipped before!) but o completely understand why people do as it’s such a ball ache trying to give things away.

I’ve recently been trying to give baby things away. Great condition things but the the time wasters …. I’m at the point of binning the things charity shops won’t accept. Even preloved to reloved on Facebook has become the same, people commenting “yes please” then ignoring you.

Obviously my 'method' wouldn't work for everyone/everything, but it does for the small-ish things I give away.

We had a load of old car tyres which the previous house owners had used to weigh down a giant trampoline.

I put them on as old used tyres. Not suitable for use on a car. FREE!

Cue a million people asking did I have 4 suitable for a mk4 golf (insert any random car) size ???
Idiots!

I naively advertised a load of cat-food pouches after my fussy cat decided the fish flavours were inedible.
I said there were about £12-worth but that I'd accept a donation to a small local charity of which I was a trustee at the time.
Woman rocked up at my house, stood and studied the sachets for an age, said she'd take them as if doing me a huge honour.
And then dropped £1.50 in small change into my hand.

I'm no longer so stupid.....

I had success putting a gazebo up with a big sign saying all items (except gazebo!) free, please take.

I really can’t be bothered to
sell or even put up general free offers anymore because of these people.

I do sometimes stalk my local parent group and neighborhood list serve watching for someone who is looking to buy something i happen to have. I don’t look for someone looking for a free item. I look for someone asking for advice on what to buy or where to get a good deal. Then I message them and offer my item that I know is in good shape for free. These people always show up and they do so quickly. It only works for common items like children’s toys though.

Yes, a skip would be less hassle.

However, you might find some refugee charity or women's shelter would like some of the stuff you mentioned.

How much were you expecting? You're not a shop, you wanted someone to collect the cat food because it's convenient and the right thing to do rather than binning usable food that you didn't need. If you wanted money then you should have specified how much, asking for an unspecified donation and then complaining what you got wasn't enough makes you sound holier than thou and like you thought you were doing everyone a huge favour.

I'm currently finding out that vinted is full of twats too. Things are so cheap on there, hardly worth the sellotape and trip to the drop off shop for a quid an item but so far I'm persisting. But so many people offering 40% less than the 2 fucking quid you want for a brand new item. When you counter offer meeting them half way they won't buy. If we're going to haggle, let's haggle otherwise just pay the fucking 2 quid or bugger off.

Totally agree. We may as well do away with recycling then in that case..

We use a service that will come and pick up your refuse and sort it in a way that they take useable goods to a charity that collects for new immigrants or for women moving out of shelters and then takes the rest to the dump. It costs a bit but in the long run, they do all the heavy lifting - you just point to what you want taken - and no dealing with grifters.

Seasoned Olioer here. I feel your pain, OP.

I once gave my address to someone on Olio. I was busy inside so told him I'd left the items by my back door for him to collect. He then proceeded to bombard me with messages insisting he was outside my house but there was nothing there and sent me a photo of someone else's front door. Wouldn't admit he'd gone to the wrong house and accused me of giving him the wrong address as a prank. You couldn't make this shit up.

I find putting clear instructions in the listing helps screen out the people who are likely to be hard work:
"Collection only evenings between 6-8. Please say in your first message when you would like to collect. I only respond to messages which include a date and time"
Then ignore any "still available?" or "can I have this please?" messages. Block if they persist.

I tend to just give out my postcode/street name to start with and ask collectors to message me when they are on their way. Only then do I give my house number.

It's not completely idiot-proof but it saves a lot of the frustration of dealing with people who can't follow basic instructions or who are downright entitled. Most the people who come to collect stuff are genuinely lovely and very grateful. Some are probably selling it on but I don't really care - car boot sales are my idea of hell and I'm just glad it's not in landfill

This thread is going a bit Lord and Lady Bountiful now. Giving stuff you don't want away is convenient for the giver also, you aren't doing the world a huge favour by not binning usable items you are doing the bare minimum that should be expected. Don't get me started on the people who object to others re using items from their skips without begging or looking suitably middle class enough "no don't steal my precious rubbish, I want it poured into landfill or incinerated so your children can enjoy breathing in its fumes or drinking it in their poisoned water later".

We sell anything of value via ebay or preloved - we have a criteria of a tenner - under a tenner isn't worth our time listing and packing/posting etc.

For other things which are still potentially useful to someone, we go to a car boot sale once a year. Usually raise around £100 after charges, just selling books, cds, dvds, opened/partially used packs such as vacuum cleaner bags (changed vacuums during the year), a clothing rail, magazines, children's games, cuddly toys, etc. Not bad for a morning in the sunshine.

We fill charity bags and take things to charity shops too (a carrier bag full every month or so).

We have a local charity which collects furniture, such as suites, sideboards, chests of drawers, etc.

Everything else gets dumped at the tip.

We've had too much hassle dealing with the general public. Tried to give away a couple of garden sheds, but just got a succession of moronic time wasters - most didn't turn up at the agreed time, then those who did expected us to dismantle them for them (despite advert clearly saying buyer dismantles), then a guy came, started to take one apart and then realised he couldn't get the sheets into his small hatchback car! Another time, we tried to sell a sofa and an old guy turned up on his own with a Nissan Micra and genuinely expected to be able to get it in his car!

I’d try and get rid of what you can eg if there’s any clothes bins on supermarket car park or nappies in food bank trolley at supermarket. Some charity shops are good - one near us you drive into compound and put stuff in trolleys zero hassle. Or see about collection eg British heart foundation. Rest I’d skip.

In our local tip there's an area for items you don't want that are still good for use. We use it quite a bit for things I don't want to leave out on the verge outside our house. I took a lot of Denby stoneware down there (feeling sad that nobody wanted it as most of it was a) rare and b) perfect condition) and was delighted when DSis told me she'd seen the staff there drinking their tea out of the Denby mugs.

We've got rid of quite a few items via FB Marketplace, fortunately our respondents were sensible and intelligent but surely at some point we'll run out of luck...

That sounds perfect - is it a national outfit? Would happily pay someone! My intent is I want everything useful to go to someone who can use it, as if I like people, but it turns out I hate people. Couldn’t bear the guilt of the tip, though, and it all getting burned for energy or illegally shipped off somewhere to sit in a heap for centuries when it’s quite useful.

Depends on where you live, but I'm on a terraced street and just put stuff on the wall. It's always gone by the time I get home from work. I'm astonished at what people take! Old pots and pans, crockery all sorts of stuff. It's so easy!

Yes it's so much hassle. I've used our local Freegle (was Free cycle) in the past but so many rude unreliable people. We then realised our local tip has numerous recycling/charity drops for clothes, books, toys, furniture and it's easier to have a clear out and then go and drop it off at the various points in one afternoon. I really hope it does get rehomed/recycled. I hate waste and I'm a big fan of decent quality second hand stuff myself.

Yep, I've got rid of an office chair, plastic garden patio set and a few other bulky low value items by doing that. It helps that I'm near a primary school, so plenty of parents walking past every day.

I've had a woman turn up hours later that planned and she asked to pay by credit card. I've had a total idiot who I ended up agreeing to deliver something to, was like pulling teeth trying to get her to give me her address as she didn't seem to know it because she'd 'just moved here', I had to find her home via a series of vague descriptions of the area. She was totally off her face when I dropped the thing off. Skip from now on for sure.

I've stopped using Freecycle for this reason - I now just take things to the charity shop. I think the problem is that you're giving it away free. People say yes when they don't actually want the item that much, then decide they don't want it enough to commit to a time or turn up when they say. No skin off their nose, they didn't really want it in the first place. Drives me crazy.

Not read it all, but im in the process of moving so im decluttering via a skip at the minute. But this works both ways. 3 times ive had sellers agree to me buying their sofa (with delivery agreed for a round about time) as i dont have one for the new place, 3 times ive sat in a currently empty house waiting for them, only for them to lark it sold and ghost me. I can afford new, second hand is my only option, but people just let you down. Its impossible.