GrodsCorp

Hard rubbish world record

Sunday 17 February 2008, 4:35 pm

The Editor

Categories: GrodsNews, Society, Weird shit

Tags: HardRubbish

It’s that time of the year here around GrodsHQ when we load our hard rubbish onto the footpath and watch the vultures pick it over before the council trucks even arrive. McBec and I were carrying a broken-down old bookshelf that has been superceded out of the house this afternoon when I declared “twenty bucks says this’ll be gone by tomorrow morning.”

It was gone ten minutes later. I shit you not. And we live on a dead-end street with virtually zero pedestrian or vehicular traffic.

UPDATE (6:55pm): Broken VCR gone too.

26 Comments

Dave from Albury (Sunday 17 February 2008, 5:03 pm) #

Here’s a nicely documented example of this universal problem, Dubbo’s Scabby Bogans. Start at the earliest post etc.
The Editor (Sunday 17 February 2008, 5:07 pm) #

That blog is five types of gold. Bravo, Dave.
Ray Dixon (Sunday 17 February 2008, 6:05 pm) #

I once put rolls of really old, dirty & smelly carpet and really filthy underfelt (the old type) out on the nature strip and it was gone that same day. And it wasn’t even ‘hard rubbish’ week.

It beats me why anybody would have wanted it - to make hanging basket liners I suppose, you wouldn’t put it in your house.
Meself (Sunday 17 February 2008, 6:11 pm) #

You know you’re a completely failed suburbanite when you end up having all your hard rubbish collected by the council truck.

We were reduced to buying stuff from the Reject Shop to add to our pile of what we thought was quite reasonable gypsy pickin’s.

(The shame! The shame!)
Ray Dixon (Sunday 17 February 2008, 6:21 pm) #

That’s high-grade rubbish they’re throwing out in Dubbo, it’d only last 5 minutes in Bright.

Well, actually no one here throws anything out. We have to wait until Wang has a hard rubbish collection before we get to re-furnish.
Dave from Albury (Sunday 17 February 2008, 6:49 pm) #

The trick to getting some of your hard rubbish stolen is to include metal, which recyclers will pay for, or electronics, which people seem to assume they can fix. These items are irresistible to garbage scabs.

I’m a hoarder of old computers, so if anything goes out for hard rubbish then not only is it well past its useful life, it is also unlikely to be in a repairable state, but nothing lasts until pickup day. I sometimes wonder whether these get lifted by some other fan of old or obscure computers or whether it’s simply ignorant scabs who think they’ve just struck gold.
Chuck A. Spear (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:12 pm) #

I put out a table top that I made from broken pieces of mirrors and two women nearly came to blows over it. In Thornbury of all places.Go figure.
The Editor (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:18 pm) #

Maybe they thought it was modern art.
Chuck A. Spear (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:28 pm) #

Well I think I have about 1000 years of bad luck now because I smashed a mirror/disco ball to make it.

Yes it was modern art Ed, it really conveyed the human condition.
The Editor (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:30 pm) #

All that effort just to throw it out. Hard rubbish day is really at the heart of human tragedy.
Chuck A. Spear (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:46 pm) #

Funnily enough no one will take my Richard Marx, Kenny G, Rick Ashley, Alan Parson’s Project, Starship, Rick-Lee, Nikki Webster, Milli Vanilli, DC Talk and Stryper collection. It’s all in mint condition too. Cash converters even knocked me back.
The Editor (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:54 pm) #

Craig might take Kenny G. off your hands. He likes to play saxophone music while using his Fleshlight.
The Editor (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:54 pm) #

Will these Fleshlight jokes never end?
Dave from Albury (Sunday 17 February 2008, 8:57 pm) #

VCR gone too eh? See, I told you I knew rubbish scabs.
Chuck A. Spear (Sunday 17 February 2008, 9:06 pm) #

You have created a monster with the Fleshlight.

Craig kind of looks like Kenny G.
Mikey (Sunday 17 February 2008, 10:27 pm) #

If you’d put a bike lock on it, it’s likely it would have gone in 5 minutes.
Jangari (Sunday 17 February 2008, 11:11 pm) #

We had our clean-up last week, and, living in quite a salubrious area, I struck gold. Persian rugs, TVs, tables, not-so-old computers and a mountain bike.

Sometimes I love rich people’s throw-away mindset.
Terry Wright (Sunday 17 February 2008, 11:46 pm) #

My friend taught me this trick. If you ever want to get rid of ANYTHING … just put it out the front on the street. No matter what, it goes within a day.

BTW Jangari - I love that word, ’salubrious’, I use it all the time … no idea what it means but it sure sounds good. LOL
Ray Dixon (Monday 18 February 2008, 12:19 am) #

I forgot about this. We’ve been renovating some flats and hired a 15 cb mtr skip. People came into the yard and rummaged it. Best pick up, a 30 year old battered and not-working twin-tub washing machine. I mean, who even knows how to use one?
Ray Dixon (Monday 18 February 2008, 12:25 am) #

And he offered to pay me for it.
Jangari (Monday 18 February 2008, 12:10 pm) #

Then there’s the entire etiquette of the throw-out. A few months ago I was helping to de-fit a shop that was being sold, and among the multiple cubic metres of complete rubbish to go was a (rather good) door. I took the brief time and effort to remove the bit of the lock that goes on the jar, to tape it to the lock, and include the key. The next day, all that remained of that was the door itself; someone found a near-new deadlock.

As an aside, this was in the slightly more sensible inner-western suburbs of Sydney, where the local council rubbish collectors collect anything that’s been thrown out, every week.

Terry, salubrious is a brilliant word, it even feels salubrious to use.
Terry Wright (Monday 18 February 2008, 2:22 pm) #

Jangari: FYI
salubrious : health-giving; healthy : salubrious weather.
• (of a place) pleasant; not run-down.

Ah ha. Now when Mrs Terry cooks and I say ‘That was saluuuuuubrious!’, I will actually know what I mean.
John Surname (Monday 18 February 2008, 10:48 pm) #

“Will these Fleshlight jokes never end?”

Wait til’ the ‘cast, my friend.
Jangari (Monday 18 February 2008, 11:27 pm) #

It appears to me that Iain Hall mistakes our jocular reminiscing of rubbish collections for the berating of people for actively engaging in this best sort of recycling.

Perfect moment to recount another anecdote.

This same rubbish collection week that was such a score for me, also involved the incident of the previous owner of one such pile of refuse who knocked on the inside of her window and motioned to me to ’shoo’. You know, flicking her fingers out in front of her as if to drive a pile of dust from in front of her face.

Pretentious sow.
Bourbon Boy (Tuesday 19 February 2008, 5:38 pm) #

My response to Mr ;;;;
Garbage-man Hall fisked
Bridgit Gread (Tuesday 19 February 2008, 6:16 pm) #

As a rule of thumb, if I think something is still useable or useful then I give it to the Salvos or St Vinny’s. Everything else goes on the nature strip for hard rubbish collection and if someone finds something useful then they can go for it, provided they don’t scatter it all over the place. But is an interesting social experiment to see what goes and how long it takes.