Do you remember the last time you had to move? Try to recall how many times during the move you said to yourself, "I can't deal with this anymore, I'm just throwing it all away!" I can almost guarantee that it was more than once.
Folks throw out perfectly good items all the time, simply because they don't need them anymore, or they've upgraded to a better version. It can be difficult to find someone to purchase your old things, or even to find someone you know who will take them off your hands.
That's when your friendly neighborhood garbage man or woman comes into play. Depending on the state you live in, it can be totally legal for the garbage person to take what they find.
The following 13 stories chronicle some of the strangest, happiest, and most surprising discoveries sanitation workers have ever made while working their routes.
Have you ever found treasure in the trash? Let us know in the comments and please SHARE with family and friends!
Thumbnail sources: Flickr 1, 2
1.
"A BIG new flat screen TV, not even a scratch visible." — Darakath
2.
"Prosthetic limbs." — ondongarbageman
3.
"Not me but my dad. He always tears the code off of thrown away Coke boxes for My Coke rewards. He and I get free movie tickets whenever. Free popcorn and drinks too." — jker210
4.
"Two beautiful 1950s pastel-colored sewing machines, one turquoise, one coral pink, with all their accessories." — Phantom_Scarecrow
5.
"A friend worked for a junk hauling place. The best things he's gotten would be a Fender Telecaster." — negativeyoda
6.
"I picked up several vinyl collections. Among the treasures were original Motown mono pressings. I still have the collection and play it regularly." — legitamizor
7.
"I pulled a fancy office chair off a pile just up the road. Tomorrow I'm getting a new desk and chair from a few houses down that just threw them out." — MeekMarsupial
8.
"I spent almost a year being a garbage man back when I was 18 years old. Everybody upgrades around Christmas time. Some people very carefully wrap everything in plastic and write 'to the garbage man' on it. I have found everything from entire paraphernalia collections, nice bicycles, go karts, and a sword." — bocefusly
9.
"When dumping a load one day, a small wooden box opened up that was filled with about 50 silver dollars from 1922. I still use one today to mark my ball in golf." — GolfPr0
10.
"The craziest thing I've taken home: a working treadmill. I still have it." — Shilvahfang
11.
"This was in the '90s… my friend's dad found a big sack full of arcade tokens. Not sure how it is now, but back then the tokens were mostly standardized. My friend was in heaven." — Best_Best_Best
12.
"One of the things that my grandfather found was an old stained glass lamp. It was kind of ugly and coated with scum that had been pouring down from a leaking ceiling. It was a very strange lamp, because it didn't give off a lot of light with the stained glass dome for a shade, and my grandfather had to completely redo all of the electricity inside to get it to work.
"My mother had it for many years on her desk until a friend of hers suggested that it was something called a Tiffany lamp. My mother looked it up in the library, and realized that the ugly stained-glass lamp that she had grown up with and was now on her desk was worth at least $55,000, and would've been worth more had my grandfather not ripped out all of the original wiring." — punkwalrus
13.
"My dad drove a recycling truck. He heard mewing and noticed movement inside a trash bag. He rescued a kitten. He took it with him. He put the kitten inside a box at the front of the truck while he finished the rest of his run." — maybe_kd
Do you know any garbage men or women who have found a treasure in the trash? SHARE with your friends and family to see what kind of dumpster diving stories they have!
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
