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Apr. 25th, 2007 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday I emptied out the basement at 629 and filled up the drop box. The assorted abandoned crap of four tenants filled the drop box level full.
The drop box is a 30-yard roll-off container. If you've never seen one due to living a sheltered suburban life of non-manual-trades, the standard roll-off container is a big metal box with a swinging door at the rear. The big metal box can be schlepped around the countryside on a special-purpose big truck and put down where you want, overhead utility lines and roofs permitting. (You need a fair amount of air space to put one of these down.) Our roll off container is approximately 22' long, 8' wide, and 6' high.
What went into the drop box?
Queen size box spring and mattress. Another queen size box spring and mattress. Two single-bed mattresses. Young American bunk bed pieces. One couch hide-a-bed, also "Young American" style. One hideous blue sofa, vinyl. One hideous blue armchair, vinyl. One hideous white-with-orange-flowers sofa. Three godawful blue reclining sofa pieces that I Hated Moving The First Time and found NO LOVE for this time either. Fuckers. Particleboard entertainment center (flattened). Particleboard bookshelf (flattened). Two washing machines, one probably functional. Card table (scuffed top) and four folding chairs (back of one broken). Glass-top kitchen table and four chairs. Two standing dressers, cheaply made. Two air mattresses (deflated). Two metal bedframes. Two dead computers, win95 vintage. Dead 5-CD player. Typewriter. Deer skull portion with rack attached. Christmas ornaments. Clothes. Bad art. Very bad art. More clothes. Kitchenwares. Knickknacks. Stuffed animals of the sort given for holidays. I positively grinned with glee at tossing the fluffy white (nothing says class like squeaky acrylic fur) teddy bear with the red heart for a nose and the word LOVE in script on the sole of his left foot. Love, my ass. Landfill, more like. Winnie-the-Pooh with a speaker in his body and dead batteries. Some damn thing that every time I knocked it, it said "Who dares wake The Mummy!!! Bwahaha!" I dare, fuckwad. I dare. Those are impressive batteries, though -- Who Dares Wake THE MUMMY!! was going on when we first packed up that shit last year. Probably some trash archaeologist is going to be going through our collective midden many years hence and will wind up needing a new set of drawers after Daring To Wake THE MUMMY!! in his or her excavations.
All of it was tenant shit. All of it was abandoned.
Demetrius -- evicted, left stuff.
William -- evicted, left stuff.
Robert -- evicted, left stuff.
Mary -- left, no notice, rent unpaid, major utility turned off.
I state firmly for the record that the vast bulk of consumer goods, no matter how damn nice they are or how fond you are of them... the vast bulk of consumer goods is not worth crap the second the new is worn off. People's stuff is just not worth anything to anyone other than them. Your "Young American" bunkbed? Worthless. Your "Genuine Peoplecliner" reclining sectional sofa? Worthless. Your hot-shit CocaCola souveneir dishes? Worth jack shit to me, bub. All your base are worthless. All your dollars chasing goods in this our little capitalist economic miracle? Worthless, pointless, and unprofitable.
General advice for prosperity: Buy less stuff. Consume less stuff. Stuff is not where the worth is. Stuff is a liability, not an asset.
That said, I still really dig my nifty digital camera.
The drop box is a 30-yard roll-off container. If you've never seen one due to living a sheltered suburban life of non-manual-trades, the standard roll-off container is a big metal box with a swinging door at the rear. The big metal box can be schlepped around the countryside on a special-purpose big truck and put down where you want, overhead utility lines and roofs permitting. (You need a fair amount of air space to put one of these down.) Our roll off container is approximately 22' long, 8' wide, and 6' high.
What went into the drop box?
Queen size box spring and mattress. Another queen size box spring and mattress. Two single-bed mattresses. Young American bunk bed pieces. One couch hide-a-bed, also "Young American" style. One hideous blue sofa, vinyl. One hideous blue armchair, vinyl. One hideous white-with-orange-flowers sofa. Three godawful blue reclining sofa pieces that I Hated Moving The First Time and found NO LOVE for this time either. Fuckers. Particleboard entertainment center (flattened). Particleboard bookshelf (flattened). Two washing machines, one probably functional. Card table (scuffed top) and four folding chairs (back of one broken). Glass-top kitchen table and four chairs. Two standing dressers, cheaply made. Two air mattresses (deflated). Two metal bedframes. Two dead computers, win95 vintage. Dead 5-CD player. Typewriter. Deer skull portion with rack attached. Christmas ornaments. Clothes. Bad art. Very bad art. More clothes. Kitchenwares. Knickknacks. Stuffed animals of the sort given for holidays. I positively grinned with glee at tossing the fluffy white (nothing says class like squeaky acrylic fur) teddy bear with the red heart for a nose and the word LOVE in script on the sole of his left foot. Love, my ass. Landfill, more like. Winnie-the-Pooh with a speaker in his body and dead batteries. Some damn thing that every time I knocked it, it said "Who dares wake The Mummy!!! Bwahaha!" I dare, fuckwad. I dare. Those are impressive batteries, though -- Who Dares Wake THE MUMMY!! was going on when we first packed up that shit last year. Probably some trash archaeologist is going to be going through our collective midden many years hence and will wind up needing a new set of drawers after Daring To Wake THE MUMMY!! in his or her excavations.
All of it was tenant shit. All of it was abandoned.
Demetrius -- evicted, left stuff.
William -- evicted, left stuff.
Robert -- evicted, left stuff.
Mary -- left, no notice, rent unpaid, major utility turned off.
I state firmly for the record that the vast bulk of consumer goods, no matter how damn nice they are or how fond you are of them... the vast bulk of consumer goods is not worth crap the second the new is worn off. People's stuff is just not worth anything to anyone other than them. Your "Young American" bunkbed? Worthless. Your "Genuine Peoplecliner" reclining sectional sofa? Worthless. Your hot-shit CocaCola souveneir dishes? Worth jack shit to me, bub. All your base are worthless. All your dollars chasing goods in this our little capitalist economic miracle? Worthless, pointless, and unprofitable.
General advice for prosperity: Buy less stuff. Consume less stuff. Stuff is not where the worth is. Stuff is a liability, not an asset.
That said, I still really dig my nifty digital camera.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-26 11:48 am (UTC)You managed to squeeze all of that crap into a single big dumpster? We got one of those brought in the week the boss was out of town so's we could throw out the five years of accumulated computer & durables boxes & cardboard which he had insisted on accumulating in our office crawlway until there was just no more room to cram anything more, and thus creating a massive pile of tinder suitable for lighting up the place for another five years of the New Economy equivalent of Centralia, Penna. We had much fun stomping around in the dumpster flattening the cardboard for each new layer of shipping cruft.
BTW, you're not supposed to throw out old computers. They're full of heavy metal enviro-horrors. Every few years they hold electronics recycling fairs up here in Centre County, dunno about your neck of the woods. I got rid of two nonfunctional Win95 boxes the last time the Heavy Metal Poisons Fair came through town.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-27 03:07 am (UTC)It's a pretty good-sized dumpster, but yes. I rather thought that all the tenant crap in the basement of 629 was "one drop-box worth" and I was quite chuffed to be 100% correct in my assessment. Go me! In the minor arcana of superpowers, I am a good judge of volume. While not as impressive as perfect pitch, it is a skill that's handy in a variety of everyday circumstances. For example, I always pick the right-size container for leftovers. I can also pack moving vans, suitcases, pickup trucks, and dumpsters more efficiently than most people.