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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

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Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#171

Post by xhkkffbf »

monocasa wrote: post #168
dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

> First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? At my wife's alma mater, the way move out in the dorms worked was that you had 24hrs after your last final and then had to be gone. That didn't really leave a lot of time for a lot of people that had maybe two checked bags and a carry on to work with, and had spent the previous time focused on study…

I realize that students don't think this way, but they could do a few things before the end of the semester. They usually find the time to get drunk or go to Starbucks for a hit of caffeine.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#172

Post by Suppafly »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

This happens at every university on move out day, especially if they have a lot of international students that need to fly out of the country.

>Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

Often they are, but most of the people already have their own stuff and limited space for additional stuff. When I lived in a dorm, anything larger items you didn't want you could put on the 3rd floor lounge area and the school would donate or dispose of them. Any other students were free to take that stuff, but unless you had preplanned to have a truck or uhaul, you could only take so much.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#173

Post by nemomarx »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #171
monocasa wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? At my wife's alma mater, the way move out in the dorms worked was that you had 24hrs after your last final and then had to be gone. That didn't really leave a lot of time for a lot of people that had maybe two checked bags and a carry on to work with, and had spent the previous time focused on study…

I realize that students don't think this way, but they could do a few things before the end of the semester. They usually find the time to get drunk or go to Starbucks for a hit of caffeine.

Starbucks is a lot easier to swing by then trying to get boxes to haul things away. Also in my experience the dorms don't let you bring by rented trucks or vehicles in the loading zone unless it's your assigned move out time slot, so you can't really do that mid semester. you could carry things by hand slowly somewhere, but it's going to be much more cumbersome.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#174

Post by monocasa »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #171
monocasa wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? At my wife's alma mater, the way move out in the dorms worked was that you had 24hrs after your last final and then had to be gone. That didn't really leave a lot of time for a lot of people that had maybe two checked bags and a carry on to work with, and had spent the previous time focused on study…

I realize that students don't think this way, but they could do a few things before the end of the semester. They usually find the time to get drunk or go to Starbucks for a hit of caffeine.

I mean, you're looking at almost a month out or so given the extra stress of the end of the semester with finals and projects. And the semester is only five months or so to being with.

It's not really realistic to make this a moral issue, IMO.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#175

Post by p3rls »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

The stigma is more about going through peoples' trash and being poor than reusing things. Environmentalism/repurposing etc, as long as its cleanly done, can be pretty high status otherwise.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#176

Post by m463 »

the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

I think craigslist is pretty close. That said it takes time and effort, and a little bit of opening up to the general public.

I remember doing a garage sale before moving years ago. We sold some stuff, but in reality nobody wants to give you anything for your stuff. I still remember a guy who came, pushing his way over asking brusquely, "Do you have any jewelry, watches, iphones or ipads?". When I said no, he left just as abruptly as he came.

Now goodwill is our preferred way. We found it is hard to get any sort of tax credit to work, so we don't even bother with receipts anymore.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#177

Post by stego-tech »

dkga wrote: post #150

A few „anthropological“ impressions from this text. First, why do people throw away tennis shoes, unopened food etc? Why not take with them on to their next destination? Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items? This is very common for example here in Switzerland - you put unwanted things ranging from old kid toys to books to furniture on the sidewalk with a sign saying „…

> Second, why not just put on the street so that other people can come and collect items?

Boston does this! The locals refer to it as “Allston Christmas”, it takes place every September 1st, and it’s a great time to scavenge furniture and appliances, even computers and electronics.

My big concern remains bedbugs, personally. As a renter myself, I don’t have the facilities to disinfect and kill off any pests that might’ve hopped on between the old apartment and the curb, which narrows my selection considerably. Still, lots of students and locals partake in the yearly turnover tradition and walk away with new room furniture sets!

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#178

Post by jldugger »

jghn wrote: post #128
the__alchemist wrote: post #124

I wonder what we need to do to make buying and selling used items convenient. My experience has been that the bid/ask spread is too large, and liquidity too low to be practical. And if you're giving something away, no one will take it. No explanation; just observations. I want to not throw things out and buy new, but haven't found a workflow that works. (I'm in an apt building near the one listed in the article; more…

Every time I've tried either selling something or giving something away, I came away finding that the hassle was totally not worth the time. Which obviously is easy to happen with giving something away. But even when selling, if for instance I sell something for $50 but put in an hour or two of my time, I'm still in the hole.

> when selling, if for instance I sell something for $50 but put in an hour or two of my time, I'm still in the hole.

I used to sell via gameflip and glyde, and that was pretty efficient; five minutes cataloging and listing the game and five minutes putting it in an envelope before my daily mail run. But these companies keep tripping over payment processing -- gameflip lost paypal, probably due to an infestation of scammers in the digital goods market?

So now I just post for sale ads on an internal company forum. But every time I come to the same conclusion. Having to personally deliver these flips the script. I seriously wonder if donating to a public library has a better ROI. They get a loanable asset, and I get a tax writeoff? But there seems to be many variables on how the writeoff is valued.

edit: or I need to set up coordination destination. Like "pickup at board game night only."

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#179

Post by chneu »

I lived near Oregon State for years after I went there. Every year end we would go to all the dorms with our trucks and tell folks to toss their shit in our truck instead of the dumpsters.

We got tons of high end, brand new electronics. Laptops, desktops, audio equipment, etc. Whatever we didn't keep we would sell.

Kids don't give a shit. Their parents bought all of their stuff and it's just too annoying to deal with moving it. If it won't fit in their car/luggage they won't take it. It's too much effort for them to sell it.

Re: I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

#180

Post by jldugger »

kevinsync wrote: post #92
ty6853 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insanely wealthy international student seems to be a pretty common component of the competitive STEM universities. I vividly recall every fall the crazy number of wrecks by fresh students after "Daddy gave me a Maserati" with no idea how to drive it -- always asian. And then in the spring a couple of the poorest international students would commit suicide when they flunked out and all their families savings back home…

There's some kind of 6-converging-storylines movie script in here somewhere.

Kinda already been done and is highly, highly rated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_Idiots
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