Dumpster Diving!

B

blk95civicex

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 10, 2003
Messages
170
The wife and I decided to go out a few nights ago and see what was in the local dumpsters. We ended up with quite a few goodies...

$180 Air up mattress with a built-in air pump, brand new, works awesome

Homedics electronic scale with built-in body fat calculator, "up" button was supposedly broken, but all you have to do is push it a little harder

Barmaster electronic mixed drink thingy

parafin wax manicure kit, brand new, just had lid hinge broken, fixed with super glue, and pedicure kit, with dremel-like tool for nails, etc.

fogless shaving mirror for shower with built-in LED's, light button was broken, but just needed to be glued back in place

Intellivision 25 arcade games in one thing that hooks up to your tv, works fine...crappy games of course...
 
one time my buddies and me accidently opened up a dumpster at a chinese buffet, thinking it was the store next to it... BIG MISTAKE. that was one of the worst smells i have ever experienced.
 
Originally posted by pentup
one time my buddies and me accidently opened up a dumpster at a chinese buffet, thinking it was the store next to it... BIG MISTAKE. that was one of the worst smells i have ever experienced.
Click to expand...
Yeah, when I was really young I used to go to local businesses to get gallon containers to catch frogs in. I made the same mistake with a local Chinese resturaunt, absolutely horrible.


Guess I'll share a small grab that I had one time while I'm here. I managed to catch a K-Mart just before it was going out of business and someone had thrown out a large box full of Rand-McNally US atlases. The only thing they did to make them unreturnable was rip off the front covers. All my family has them in their cars, all my friends have them, and anyone that is talking about going on a trip gets one. I even have one I am planning on marking up for all the roads I've been on in my travelings. :)
 
Poked my head in the OfficeMax dumpster today. Soggy as hell (it has been raining) but I grabbed a DVD+R disc still in its case. It looks to be new. I don't have a DVD-RW drive so I can't test it, but I might try to find a friend who has one. Going to go back tonight after it is closed to do some real diving.

EDIT: Went back tonight...it was empty! :( Guess I will have to start diving in the middle of the week.
 
Originally posted by Peale
Not the canned stuff either, freshly grated.
Click to expand...


eew. That stuff is nasty. Good thing you have some good cheese ;) You could stick a fuse in that green can of crap and have a dumpster molotov cocktail!!! :p

Dane
 
I worked at my dad's office over winter break. I got a bunch of phone cords from the dumpster, nothing else good.
 
No new posts lately, so I thought I'd chime in.

Found two computers in the same dumpster over the course of a week. A 486 SX/25 (woo hoo) and a Pentium something or another. Both had working hard drives (200m and 2.2G) which will be good for some upcoming MAME projects.

Some variety of Mac @ a Mac store.

Gateway monitor like the one I already have, but I left it. Should have taken it for parts. Might have even worked.
 
origionally posted by Wampa
Poked my head in the OfficeMax dumpster today. Soggy as hell (it has been raining) but I grabbed a DVD+R disc still in its case. It looks to be new. I don't have a DVD-RW drive so I can't test it...
Click to expand...

Look at it, does the media show track marks? Put it in any DVD player and see what happens. You know a DVD+R is a different recording format than DVD-R or DVD-RW and is a once only write (or many once only writes) in a DVD+R or DVD+RW drive, right?
 
My bad, it is a DVD-R.

I can't see any track marks, and nothing happens when I put it in my DVD player. I think it came from a larger set, maybe a 5 or 10 pack, because there is no UPC. It might have come out of a set and they just tossed it because they couldn't sell the individual disc.
 
I found a DVD Dual format drive the other day. Tested and confirmed CD Read and CD Write, just need some burnable DVDs. Also found a USB Extension cable and a 128mb thumbdrive that works great.
 
Checked and....oh yeah this sucker burns the DVDs with no problem. Man God was on my side that night. It's a sweet drive.
 
damn, you are one lucky man to find a thumb drive, dvd burner and a usb extension cable
 
Last night was luggage night. Found two practically brand new suitcases. Brand name stuff, really rugged.

Also about 50 rolls of wrapping paper. Not XMAS, birthday and the like. Pokemon, wrestling, Dragonball Z.
 
I need to start going again, I've not dove in almost 4 months.
 
Originally posted by NecessaryEvil
I need to start going again, I've not dove in almost 4 months.
Click to expand...

better than me never going.... never have had the car to go! haha

AJ
 
Well, here I go again...
My wife just informed me that her job is getting ready to toss out a TON of good stuff. Boxes full of PC cards and, get this, at least 20 brand new, still sealed OEM 30 gig HDDs. I don't know why the hell they are throwing them out, I don't want to know. But I'm going to be going tomorrow to get as much of this stuff as possible. The IT dept. is so unorganized at her job its rediculous. Will report back later.
 
Originally posted by cgrant26
Well, here I go again...
My wife just informed me that her job is getting ready to toss out a TON of good stuff. Boxes full of PC cards and, get this, at least 20 brand new, still sealed OEM 30 gig HDDs. I don't know why the hell they are throwing them out, I don't want to know. But I'm going to be going tomorrow to get as much of this stuff as possible. The IT dept. is so unorganized at her job its rediculous. Will report back later.
Click to expand...

I'd love 2 of those 30giggers if you wouldn't mind PIFing!
 
I could use some of the hardware also, as I am going into computer forensics, and need to make a computer just for that purpose. When I would collect the evidence, it needs to be done on a totally different computer, not connected to the internet. Is there a way I could get some of this hardware? This would be a great help to me, as the pickings here are slim.

BTW, what does PIF mean?

Dane
 
Originally posted by cgrant26
Well, here I go again...
My wife just informed me that her job is getting ready to toss out a TON of good stuff. Boxes full of PC cards and, get this, at least 20 brand new, still sealed OEM 30 gig HDDs. I don't know why the hell they are throwing them out, I don't want to know. But I'm going to be going tomorrow to get as much of this stuff as possible. The IT dept. is so unorganized at her job its rediculous. Will report back later.
Click to expand...

Damm.:eek: That would be one hell of a dive. 600GBs in harddrives for free.:eek:
 
Yeah, I'd be interested in acquiring one of those 30gig drives as well as the others, I really need something to tide me over on storage space until I can afford to get another 120gig SATA for my RAID.
 
both my hdd's just died lol it would be awesome if i could get a 30 off you... i'll pay you for em too if you would like some cash. ijust need to get my main rig back up and going.

AJ
 
Went Dumpster Diving last night and found something you guys might like to look at. Yep I sure did I got a whole computer desk. The only thing wrong with it is a big scratch down the entire back side which you cant see b/c its up near my wall. I'll probably fix that this summer, but I tried Dumpster Diving last night and now its a new hobbie!


f9edf80f.jpg
 
Went diving today (not my first time), didn't expect much since I can't drive and theres a foot of snow on the ground...

On top of of the garbage in one of the last dumpster I check (rest just had normal garbage in), I found a 1.6gb hd, from a company I've never heard from, (Daisy Disc Corpation). Took it hope and just clicks like my other HD I pulled from the trash during October. :(

W00t I now have another coffee cup coaster ~! :D

Going to go again once the snow melts, and maybe can find some parts I need for my HTPC. (Special Compaw PSU, larger broken VCR).

Damn, I can't wait to get my license so I can check out the parts at all the M & P places 10-20 miles away :( :(
 
Originally posted by StOoTs26
Went Dumpster Diving last night and found something you guys might like to look at. Yep I sure did I got a whole computer desk. The only thing wrong with it is a big scratch down the entire back side which you cant see b/c its up near my wall. I'll probably fix that this summer, but I tried Dumpster Diving last night and now its a new hobbie!


f9edf80f.jpg
Click to expand...

Lucky bastard!
 
Originally posted by ZeroS
Went diving today (not my first time), didn't expect much since I can't drive and theres a foot of snow on the ground...

On top of of the garbage in one of the last dumpster I check (rest just had normal garbage in), I found a 1.6gb hd, from a company I've never heard from, (Daisy Disc Corpation). Took it hope and just clicks like my other HD I pulled from the trash during October. :(

W00t I now have another coffee cup coaster ~! :D

Going to go again once the snow melts, and maybe can find some parts I need for my HTPC. (Special Compaw PSU, larger broken VCR).

Damn, I can't wait to get my license so I can check out the parts at all the M & P places 10-20 miles away :( :(
Click to expand...

Take the hard disks, and gut them. Inside are magnets, perfect for anything, like hanging your best friends car off a bridge ;) Okay, bad joke, but they are super *STRONG* magnets. At least you can get something out of the dead hard disks ;)

Dane
 
I was driving by OfficeMax tonight around 10:30 with a friend when we noticed the dumpster in the back was full. Not even planning to dive, we poked our heads in the dumpster, and came out with three new DVD+RW discs and two CD-RW discs, still new in cases. It was hard to see because there were no lights and it is incredibly cold (dipping to negatives) so we drove back to my house to get gloves and jackets and a flashlight.

Came back and dug through some more. The flashlight I grabbed was HUGE, made of metal, over a foot long easily. Although the dumpster was full it was mostly Earthlink demo CDs, regular trash, parts of a chair (not the seat so we didn't bother to grab it all) and a Sentry safe (the door was broken off). Since we were in the mood, we checked out Circuit City and Best Buy in the area. Both had compactors, so no luck. It was strange walking behind buildings at midnight with a giant flashlight in my hand...real adrenaline rush during the dives though :). We tried to find the CompUSA by the mall but got lost and ended up going home. Going to try tomorrow for CompUSA maybe, since it looks like people here have had better luck with it. I might bring my camera with me to take action pics, but I am not sure if I am ballsy enough to carry a $200 camera into a dumpster :cool:.

A picture of our small haul!

2 x imation 80 min/700MB CD-RW
3 x Memorex 4x DVD+RW 4.7GB
 
Anyone in Houston wanna try with me :rolleyes: We got a micro center or 2, tons of bestbuys and circuit city, if thats ur pref, tons more that I can name.
 
It's never too cold to sift through people's trash for discarded freebies :cool:

Plus I've noticed the cold keeps the smells down a bit. The Noodles & Company dumpster next to the Office Max barely reeked at all last night. We made the mistake of poking our heads in there over the summer...:eek:
 
yeah i would like to start doing it... sounds like fun and i want to see if i can get lucky and find a desk... that one that was found looks nice
 
Went again but this time I kind of cheated. I work for a construction crew and we are remolding a church. Well today I over heard the pastor talking about his new printer and how he got rid of his old one. Well today after work I went behind the church and there it was a HP DeskJet 690c. So I'm kind of sceptical, that a preacher would throw something away like this. Thank god the cords where still plugged up to them. But anyways I took it home and tried it out and it worked! I mean it even had half of both cartriges still. :D

Diver for life.
 
Originally posted by StOoTs26
the pastor


Thank god
Click to expand...

Heh heh...I just found that funny :)

I found parts to desks in the Office Max dumpster and the neighboring dumpster, but nothing complete. Did you find that desk all in one piece, Stoots?
 
Originally posted by Genix
Hmm, why does it seem like most threads on this forum somehow include porn or masterbation? :-P
Click to expand...


dude - do you think anyone in this forum gets laid? think about it.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top