Social contract info a neighbor just learned the hard way:
at least the US, if you put stuff at the end of your driveway/on the curb, with or without a sign, it’ll be interpreted as “free”
Maybe not like a bike you just parked but other stuff? If you don’t have a sign / you don’t have obvious signs to the contrary… yeah.
@platypus i remember a friend putting a bunch of scrap wood out at the end of the drive and while he was typing up the craigslist free listing a pickup showed up and loaded all of it
@brennen I love this. It just seems about right for my area too
@platypus We put an old couch that may have had ringworm spores in it by the dumpster and in the time it took for us to go back inside and write a note that said "may have ringworm" it was already gone. Good luck to whoever took it.
@wlonk Oh no! I definitely appreciate when people put out signs. I got a college couch that way but it had no sign on it
@platypus Oof. I hope for your neighbor it was nothing expensive or that he cared about.
@Sylvhem a bunch of firewood 😅 so kind of but
@platypus It could have been worse 😅.
@platypus me as a high schooler used to drive around SPECIFICALLY looking for free piles
@platypus
We have days here in Germany for picking up these kind of trash.
The night in-between the stuff being placed and picked up sees mysterious wandering of items…
I _think_ legally it would be theft. But good luck finding the thief…
@VickyRampin
@RyunoKi @VickyRampin The week before our big day, we literally have trucks with trailers crawling all over looking for anything good in big trash pick up. But also again I don’t know what the rules are but it is very much socially understood that that’s cool.
@platypus Bikes are often set out for free pickup at the curb (at least in my part of Canada), just to confuse matters further.
Passers-by will generally try to double-check with the homeowner first, though, rather than just *yoink*
Our bedside table/dresser thingies were both scrounged (15 years apart!) from curbs.
@dbs I have multiple things in the house that came from peoples curbs including one bookcase that is over 20 years old at this point and I love it.
@dbs we also get bikes here, but at least people put the free signs on them. Which I think is an appropriate level of disambiguation. However if one were left out there for a week I would assume it was free
@platypus Really?! I have a friend in Florida that says there are specific days for that sort of thing but I'm not aware of that being a thing in SoCal. Hmmm...
@ScottMGS we also have specific days for it, but anything right at the end of the yard is essentially a gift. Unless there is a sign saying that it is not. I think people make fewer assumptions about objects like bikes. But otherwise it’s a good idea to put a sign, although normally you wouldn’t put something there unless you were giving or throwing it away.
@platypus Hunh. Could be a bit of a culture shock for people moving into an area like that. I suppose it could be strange going the other way, too. I know Freecycle and Craigslist are big here. I rarely see (or notice?) stuff sitting on the curb.
“It was only an hour” yeah I got bad news about us being a bunch of grabby reusing fuckers, bud. Good luck.