when "stuff" is too good

[Use Less]

I'm still sorting and organizing the workshop. Not every day. A box to take to the haz waste drop-off. Several bags of trash out: lots of dusty bags and little boxes. Dad saved so much spare hardware, often packaged just as he brought it home from the store. 

Yesterday I found three little bags inside a bigger one: a new grill igniter, two old ones, and assorted screws and small plates that he must have taken off old grills when he took them to metal recycling or set by the curb. That is not the only "surprise".   

I'm stuck at what to do with some things. Lots of new/like-new metal plumbing parts that I don't have a use for.  $$ in the store, pennies on the dollar as recycling. Useable paint. (Yes, saved what I could ID as touch-up, for where I won't be repainting soon.)  Small auto parts, cleaners, fluids.  Not in me to put all that in the trash.   

[Woodpecker]

Garage sale? Here it’s amazing how people come early to get the best things! I’ve never had a garage sale, I should. I have a problem with neighbors knowing what I’m discarding. My sister & her DIL had a sale together and made over $900.00.... not too shabby for getting rid of things that won’t be used.

[dw]

Do you have a Habitat store nearby? We have taken some things to them when we cleaned out MIL's house/garage.

[Use Less]

Jan 12, 2020 19:16:05 GMT dw said:

Do you have a Habitat store nearby? We have taken some things to them when we cleaned out MIL's house/garage.

There are a couple. The closest one gets tons of stuff. A lot of it goes right into the trash. Metal things go into a huge dumpster, to be sold as scrap. I was in there looking around one time, and heard and saw a couple volunteers tossing items across their small open receiving room into a trash barrel, laughing all the while. The person who carried the things in was still in the store... Turned me right off them. 

[Jolly]

I have a lot of stuff that's too bad to keep and too good to throw away.

[Use Less]

Jan 12, 2020 20:13:30 GMT Jolly said:

I have a lot of stuff that's too bad to keep and too good to throw away.

That's pretty much it in the workshop. My sibs took lots of Dad's tools, but not the hardware and odds 'n ends. When I bought the house 18 months later, we hadn't cleaned it out. The two sisters out-of-state were never going to help, anyway. There are repairs and chores I won't be doing myself, so every tool and accessory I pick up, I'm assessing. "Will you ever want to solder something? Not likely? OK, into the box on the left." 

I'm trying to think of this as weeding that only truly needs done once. 
 

[mzgarden]

Do you know any backyard mechanics that would look through and maybe use some of the car parts/tools?

[christie]

New grill igniter has future use, old ones do not IMHO.

Not an easy decision re: toss, recycle, donate, or sell. My question to you - how much time and effort do YOU want to expend? While your local restore seems to be overloaded with "smalls" (to quote American Pickers) hence destination dumpster, are there local fix-it folks or even trash haulers? Both are probably more motivated to assess versus automatically send to dumpster.

So I say be objective and if items have non-recycle use, suck it up and sell them. Plenty of time between now and garage sale season (for those of us in the north). Ask around your circle of friends re: who is having a sale. If you live rural, find a person in a high traffic area and ask to put things on their sale. Offer to work the garage sale and pay for advertising. The person that held the last garage sale at which we sold items liked some items we had for sale. We did not charge her for those items. My garage sale motto is price to sale - aka don't want to bring anything home. Items you think still have use but don't feel comfortably selling go into a free box. I've done this many a times.

As to plumbing supplies - I think those would sell fast at a garage sale. 

[Use Less]

Christie, you voiced why this all prompts my posts, and my waffling, very well.

As to time and effort, the clean up/clean out part is on me. It came with the house, though my brother did add some dollars to my share of Dad's estate. We all would have had to either do the work, or pay someone if we'd sold outside the family. I'm inspired to clean and organize the workshop to make work space for a plumber to replace the old, hard-plastic waterlines soon. 

I know myself well enough to recognize that I'd agonize over just tossing things that should be recycled, reused, or go to haz waste.

Sales at residences here don't seem to do well. The village is small, with many rentals whose occupants are low income or on assistance. There is a June sale at a housing development just outside the village that gets a lot of traffic, so perhaps I could find a place to set up a table there. I would not want to pay much for the privilege.

I have two boxes of this-and-that which my DB, BIL or nephew might very well use, if I could just get them to come take a look.

Once I take the boxful that really is metal scrap and another of haz waste away, there will be that much less that is really just clutter.

[freelove]

Could you set 'stuff' out on a curb or the end of a driveway for free? I put lots of stuff out for free, mostly it is taken. If it is an out of the way location, put a free ad in a local shopper or post signs to let people know that it is there. People where I live put out a lot of things for free with a sign.

[laurazone5]

Facebook Marketplace.

You can either do "porch pick up" or you can arrange a meeting place.
For the things that have value, folks will drive for the item.

I am sorry you had a bad experience at the Habitat store. I would reach out to the Habitat home office and let them know what you witnessed.
It's an amazing organization and I would hate for a couple of bad apples make folks sour on the program.

If you goal is to clean out and not make $$ you could contact a local plumber and barter his/her time to help you clean in exchange for items?