>>33989
ah man i used to dumpster dive as a kid...
those were the days.

>>34028
What was the best thing you ever found?

>>34043
idr i think i was like 6 or 7
the only thing i can really remember was getting one of those
Christmas tree stands.
me and my step-dad would scavenge for a lot of stuff, he would build/rebuild speakers out of spare parts it was pretty cool

work some place you know has good stuff, or have friends that work in said places. That way you can have the pick of the litter.

>>34064
he would also take old thrown out tv's and vcr's and replace the fuse in them and they'd work like new.

I found a framed print of some impressionist oil painting, looked it up from the store tag left on the back and new it went for $80. it was actually sitting next to a dumpster I drove by though, not sure if that counts as dumpster diving


OH, pizza, up until that store figured out everyone was going through their dumpster as soon as they closed

...don't forget to smell test food. Wash anything you find. If approached by authorities, be polite, yes sir, no sir attitude goes a long way. If they ask, just tell them you were looking for aluminum cans. It's always a good excuse and they'll let you off with a warning.

....umm umm. Have a pick up truck handy, if you can afford it. Some tools just in case. I found a heavy case used to display jewelry but it was to heavy to throw in the trunk and i didn't have the tools to take it apart right away. It was gone the next day (RATS!!).

Never dive blind. Bring a flashlight. Also, silence is golden.

This thread reminds me when my uncle filled his fridge with eggs and sliced cheese while looking for scrap metal.

>>33989
oh boy, this was my childhood! best find was a working typewriter, if your into that sort of thing, and a jar with at least 40 bucks in it.

if you take a trip to the suburbs, ive gotten two bikes (with 'free take me' signs on them!), two bookshelves, and a chair. just need a truck or something to haul stuff in, and basic ability to fix things up.

>>34173
LOL, people throw away the most amazing things.

I remember as a kid my friends and I would dumpster dive. We lived in a complex kinda area where they would put the big BFI dumpsters in these fenced off areas that had a gate in the front. We would use the gate to climb in the dumbster after we used our tippy toes to look for anything good. Mostly we would take stuff like wood, old doors, rope, and other miscellaneous junk and build forts down by the river that ran behind my house. Ahh. . . the memories it brings back. Thanks OP!

worst find? Dead pets.
best find? Still working electrical appliances.
Favorite find? A wooden cube that my ps3 sits on. I'm decorating it with stickers i find.

I've never dumpster dived. But I have spent a good deal of time driving around and picking up stuff people have left by their trash that they were giving away for free. Over the past year, I've recovered a newer HP printer/copier/scanner works perfectly, checked online and its selling for 70$ used, two flatscreen LCD monitors one Dell and one HP both 17" in good condition, A dell latitude laptop 2 GHz was missing harddrive, other than a cleaning is in great shape after a fresh installation of linux on a new hd. so much other stuff I can't list. But yeah its addictive and fun. =)

Fellow divers, please remember to tag your finds as a courtesy to others.

Found a giant arrow, still my prized poss...OH CRAP ITS STILL AT MY MOMS~!

I missed out on a music box...Was working, heard it, was afraid to get suit dirty. Next day, I say fuck it, dive on in, never found. Heartbreak.

I used to live next to a cable provider. Their dumpster was always full of old tv/computer equipment. Once I found a firewall router that I got $400 for on eBay. That's a lot of fucking money for a 14 year old.

Then another time I found a raccoon. It was alive and well, and did not appreciate my intrusion. But that's what happens when you go straight in, feet first every time.

Hope I make some good finds soon.

Found a working Dream Cast with some scratched games but a few work. I would love to get into diving, that find was just random and I guess I wouldn't really call it a dumpster "dive" it was just sitting in a trash bag. Any suggestions for how I can find good places to scout in california?

a bicycle that i use now, i don't remember what else i've found over the years, mostly stuff i've used for parts

>>34209
problem with this is that dumpsters frequently get switched around citywide..

go to flea markets, they're basically where all the best picked stuff ends up and if you know what you're looking for ahead of time, you can get great deals

Probably the best thing i found was a surround sound system. Nothing was wrong with it except a missing remote. I also found a 15" speaker that I used to fix my guitar amp on a different trip

Best find ever was an 11 inch cast iron frying pan. Salvaged it from a pile of junk left at the curb. People are really wasteful of some very high quality things.

A dumpster diving story from college, in three parts:

It was the last day to move out of the dorms, but I worked there so I got to stay. Lots of dumpsters were getting filled to the brim all across campus. I ran into this one guy who got a short extension to stay there an extra day, and he remarked about everyone throwing away great stuff. I agreed, and said how I get some great stuff, and the dumpsters on the off-campus apartments are loaded with great stuff. He said, "wanna go hit them? I have a pickup truck." Fuck yea! College is great for random meetings like this.

So we hop into his truck and go to a few of the on-campus dumpsters, pick up some good things, and then go to the off-campus apartment dumpsters. They are HUGE. We actually have to jump onto the sides and then jump up again to get inside, and it is a treasure trove. Tons of great stuff, most notably a Slipknot wall scroll in perfect condition and two awesome stock apartment chair-couches that came in every apartment in the complex. They didn't seem broken, which made us wonder why they were in there to begin with, but we flipped them over the side and loaded them into the back of the pickup.

We left that apartment complex and were on our way to one more apartment complex. We were sitting at a red light when someone knocks on the driver-side window in full traffic. He asked, "Did you get those couches from Anon Apartments?" We were like, "Yeah we fished them from the dumpster." "Well take them back right now." "...Umm, sure, okay."

>>34301 Part 2:

It was some manager that worked at the last apartment complex - he was driving on the same road, recognized the furniture as being the kind that was from his complex in passing, thought we were stealing them, and followed us like in a car chase so he could confront us in the middle of traffic. It must have been such a rush for him.


Alright, so we don't want to get in trouble, so we make a u-turn and head back to Anon Apartments and we can see him following us, talking to someone on his cell phone in the mirrors. I was still wearing my university job shirt, and I knew if I got accused of stealing furniture from Anon Apartments (the university owned some of them and had a big presence there), I'd get in big trouble or fired. So I decided to take off my shirt and turn it inside out and put it back on. Genius, right? I don't know what I was thinking. The manager guy that was following us saw me do this for sure.

So we get to Anon Apartments, drive into the main part, and there are like five cop cars waiting for us with their lights flashing. Fuuuuuuuuuck. All this for fucking dumpster diving junk. My partner immediately started freaking out, almost started to cry, saying that he can't get arrested and his parents would kill him, etc. There were five or six cops standing there, and they told us to get out of the truck. They were pretty chill about it. They asked us where we got it from, and we told them that we had been going around to dumpsters on this move-out day gathering things.

>>34304 Part 3:


Two other cops were talking to the manager guy, and we can overhear him saying things like, "Yeah that's definitely our couches, they took it for sure!" He did have a point - the couches were perfect, so they probably didn't belong in the dumpster, so it was natural to think they were stolen. One of the officers did ask why my shirt was inside out, and I said the lamest thing: "I was getting really sweaty, so I turned it inside out to cool off." I don't think he bought it, but he probably couldn't think of a good reason why I would ever do that, so he just ignored it.

After another hour of just standing around answering the same questions and writing down statements, the cops see we were just collecting junk and him and the manager decide to take back their couches and give us trespassing warnings, meaning that if we ever come back we could be arrested. They said that, while it is a sort of common social understanding that obvious trash is free for the taking, we were on private property and we should have asked permission first. I can imagine that going well - walking into the main office, sweaty and dirty as fuck, asking them if it is okay if we rummage through their garbage. Then we left and that was that.

The thing was, I had to go back to Anon Apartments the very next day for job training. I lived in fear for the next three years that one day I would have to deal with an officer in some way (it was pretty common in that job), and one of them would happen to run my name and the trespassing warning come up. It never happened. That was the last time I truly dumpster dived, back in 2002. Now, when I see a good bounty, I just pick at what I can see because I'm too scared.

>reposting from the other thread, because it's apparently deader than disco

Alright, noob with a noob question here.
Let's say you were scouting out a new town for possible 'diving spots.
What do you look for, what do you keep in mind, what do you stay away from, and what do you need to know?
I'd imagine that it would be useful to know when trash pickup is, and if you're 'diving a retail store's dumpster, when they close.
How does one find out these things, other than to stakeout the place and wait?

Best thing I've ever found was a huge stack of old National Geographics. Some still had floppy records in them of like whale sounds and shit. Was pretty neato

bump

Three ferrets, not even kidding. Some douchbag just put them in a box and left them there. Along with their cage. Thankfully, I was taking out the garbage that day and took them home. They're total bros.

Use to dive behind Aaron Brothers Framing Store. Got about 8 clear plastic frameless poster mounts. Hard to explain, but I still have them on my wall. They were in the original saran wrap too.

When you do this, what kind of dumpsters are you talking about? I mean I'm picturing like New York City alleyway big green dumpsters for some reason, but where I live it's all residential small garbage cans.. Can I still get into this? It seems really cool.

I dont have time to go around hunting for stuff but when i drive to/from work or even at work and see someone tossing out something good like a old computer ill ask them for it and load it in my truck. The best thing I ever got was at this store like 3 years ago I was driving to get lunch for me and a co-worker and saw them placing tons of old computers from like 1990-2000 next to a dumpster so I pulled over and asked them if I could take them since they did not want them and ended up with 8 computers with monitors, mouses, keyboards, and ofcorse all the wires.

i found some sweet board games when i was a kid. even some old hockey pads (i live in canada) and an old red kids bike.
we found many little things because our complex has this guarbage building with recycling and a dumpster. many people are too weak to get the big heavy items into the dumpster so they leave them laying around in this small structure. easy finds and its all our shared private property. all legit diving for me.

and just getting a post in before them numbers get wayy to high :P DIY i love this board.

>>34304
>>34306
sounds like a sad pathetic power hungry guy

hope he's dead

>>34315
>>34306
>>34304

pic

Anyhow, arent you /diy/hard bros afraid of getting some toxic shit that come from those dumps? I've read somewhere that some electronics-related shit can leak something that can cause cancer or some freaky thing, reason why I dont dumpster dive (like theres some place here where I am from I can actually dumpster dive)

>>34511

maximum jelly

anyone know of dumpter diving communities or groups?

I've found a few decent computer chairs. That's about it though.

>>34084
Oh poop. What was that tip again that if you order a pizza and canceled it they'd throw it out. They still do that right?

Also this one time when I was a younger and poorer kid I found a TMNT coloring book. Shit was so cash.

I think /diy/ is gonna be one of my new favorite boards.