The Fine Art of Trash-Mongering

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The Heathcote gang, when we got back, were unimpressed with what we'd got. And not without reason, given the big league trashpicking that some Heathcoters have pulled off in the past. When the redoubtable Pasquale Giuseppe Giovanni Valenziano lived here he routinely performed incredible feats of virtuoso trashmongering, frequently and without apparent effort. He found his lady an elegant fur coat, and once brought home some plastic wastes that looked a psychedelic blend of entrails and cowpiles and were the object of considerable ridicule until he unloaded two of them at an artsy Baltimore fleamarket for a cool $30 each.

But if our take yesterday was unspectacular by comparison, its effect upon the aforementioned two kids was not. When we distributed the childrens' portion of our modest treasure trove between them the older commenced to wail, "mommy, can we go to the dump tomorrow?" Progress. Her head had been turned by the bounty of the Wasteland Free Store, and brother's too. We'll try to take them back next week. They'll make good gypsies one day.

A few additional notes now from one who's only a novice picker, but enthused:

On trash cans the night before pickup: A couple of months ago in York, Pennsylvania two of us killed an hour among the cans. Outside the AAA office we stocked up on their helpful tourguides without benefit of membership and for a bonus got a wondrous National Geographic map of the Indian Ocean with all the water drained out (it now graces my wall here in the Shanti). A few cans down the line we picked up on fine costume jewelry, three or four ladies' hats circa 1940, a finely bound volume of Poe's collected works, lace and a bunch of other stuff I can't recall, all courtesy of a maiden schoolmarm who'd departed this world that week. The neighbors had already culled through the lot and taken the best, but even the leftovers were worthwhile. The guy next door obligingly assisted and advised us.

Obviously you should observe pickup schedules in advance whenever possible so you'll know which neighborhoods to hit on which nights. In Los Angeles I knew people who more than once hauled home hundreds of dollars worth of elegant furniture in a single night's work from the alleys of Bel Air and Beverly Hills.

In New York, (and some other cities as well) a small apartment can almost always be furnished very commodiously at no cost other than the labor involved in locating and retrieving the needed items from the selection arrayed on sidewalks and in gutters nearby.

Mattresses and most other basic furniture can very often be located at dumps. Sunshine, airing, fumigation, lysol, and repairs are frequently required, but all of those are free or dirt cheap when stacked up against monthly payments.

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