I have never seen people be more rude or hostile than when free stuff is advertised. Makes me think that making people pay for things is one of the pillars of society.
But they are Nigerian pedophiles, so its cool.
EXACTLY! I don’t really hate her, people like that are too dense to waste that much energy on, but it was rather irritating. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed and have way too many things to do (though I’m closing in on the light at the end of the tunnel :)).
I must have gotten 50 emails on the freebies. Oh, and despite her snippy little “fine! I guess if I show up and they’re still there I might get them but no one will probably want them” most of the stuff was gone in about 45 minutes. The last few things took a bit longer, (including one thing she really wanted, which amazed me because it was a really nice handmade piece of furniture), so if she’d even met me halfway, she probably could have had it.
But to add to the story, I had some moronic sounding guy call about three times throughout the little 4 hour “meet” I’d scheduled, to see what, if anything was left. He finally showed up about 15 minutes before I was done and then said (all astonished), “this is all??” about the remaining items.
I was half 
half :rolleyes:
People…
I live on the third floor. And a lot of it was furniture, much of it heavy or physically impossible for me to move. I guess you could call it more of a freebie “moving sale”.
The pedophile scam is run by necrophiliacs. Just a heads up.
It’s funny but when you think about it, this makes sense. People place a relative monetary value on everything and when something is free (i.e. no monetary value) they behave accordingly. Unfortunately, dollars are much easier to count than things like integrity and maturity. Your stuff is free, ergo you must not be worth much yourself.
Sad, but I’ve seen it too many times to be coincidence.
On mental review, I may have given the impression that I was talking about you personally. This was *not *my intention.
I couldn’t give away several couches for free on freecycle, and later, craigslist. On a hunch, I changed the craigslist listing to “2 couches- $40”. They were gone in 2 hours.
Giggle! No, no, what you said made perfect sense, particularly in retrospect. And that is human nature.
Next time (if there is a next time), I’ll just do the “place/time/first come, first served” thing. People can email me til the cows come home if they like.
One nice note on the item " I have 4 Kids!!!" lady just had to have. A nice Korean family was the one that got it, that and a huge set of shelving units I was seriously afraid I was going to have to pay someone to remove.
He emailed me today, thanking me again for the nice desk. Now that’s class!
I’ve had variable results with FreeCycle.
I first joined a local group in 2008 when preparing to move from a townhouse cross country to a much smaller apartment; the group was based in a city of about 100,000 people. It was a wonderful experience and a lot of items that I would have probably had trouble donating to Goodwill (partially used boxes of resume paper, etc.) went to good homes at the local historical society, etc.
I’m potentially moving again and joined the Freecycle groups for the city I live in a suburb of (the city is about 175K) and the suburb. So far, it appears no activity in the suburb group and in the city group (I work in the city) the posts have all been for ridiculous WANTED items (brand new stainless sinks, matching double beds, etc.). Probably part of the difference is moderation and maybe the concept is just not as familiar here.
My neighborhood has rules against basically putting things out with a “hey, I’m free, take me sign!” so it looks like trips to Goodwill are in my future. I’ll admit FreeCycle was more fun because when it worked, it reinforced the concept (at least to me) of sharing/letting go of items because I would get to see the person who was able to find something they need.
(Sadly, also, the Book Crossing movement hasn’t taken on here… just heard of that and it sounded like a great way to “free” some books!)
I did the same thing with a dishwasher. Put it on CL for free for two days with the address. Still there. Took down the free and listed it for a price, I think 25 bucks, gone that day.
I assumed it was because people doubted it worked which is why I was giving it away for free and they had more confidence when I was selling it. However, my theory doesn’t work with your sofa experience.
I attempted to join freecycle to save me some trips to goodwill and I was rejected! I will never understand how I could be rejected from a total stranger after wanting to donate goods.
Very odd.
lol! I know when I see a free sofa I think “It probably smells like cat pee” or “Someone probably puked on it” or that its been on one of these houses.
I tried to give away a ten-speed bike once, no one wanted it. Then I just left it unlocked in the alley, and it was gone overnight.
Well, sure… I could have class, too, if I didn’t have these 4 KIDS!!!
Oh, wait, I only have two, so I’m kinda half-class…
I’ve told before the story of having a meet-and-ask with a woman from a local minority’s association. One of the programs they worked on was literacy; she told us about how difficult it had been to convince City Hall to charge for lessons, because otherwise her people would not consider them valuable. Free literacy classes had been available for over a century; having the association push them on people got them to sign up, having a token fee got them to attend.