Curbside Dump

I don’t know if this a thing elsewhere, but here in my New Jersey town things left at the curb are fair game for scrappers and recyclers.  Some of us leave things out for the garbage men to pick up, aware that the items may get grabbed first by the junkers.

Fair enough.

But more often, the items abandoned by the curb are too large to be picked up by the garbage man without an extra fee.  Some of my neighbors still leave these large, undesirable items on the curb, hoping that the junkers will pick them up.  Invariably, this array of discarded furniture is in very bad shape; abandoned for a reason.  Left curbside and exposed to the elements for days and then weeks on end, the items continue to decay and are less desirable then ever.  Sofas, chairs, tables, pressed wood shelves and desks, mattresses….I’ve seen every one of these things left at the curb for weeks at a time.

This scratched leather sofa and its torn cushions are in week two at the curb.  I’ve even seen the neighbor kids sitting on it.  A day or two seems forgivable, of course.  But I begin to grow weary and pray for rain, in the hopes the sofa will float away or embarrass its owners into leaving an extra $20 for the garbage men so that they will haul its carcass to the dump.