Dumpster Diving!

Hell if the circus peanuts were sealed then I would eat them too. I love those things. Besides, we've probably sold worse stuff in my grocery store.
 
This summer, my friend has been hired by the computer services department at my school to be their lackey-of-sorts - he moves computers, reimages them, and such. He's found some monitors. They're 14 inches and by noname companies, so they were going to throw them out. They weren't *in* the dumpster, but they were headed for it... so I grabbed them.

I just scored a couple of monitors. They all work, some are slightly discolored (purple-ish) around the edges, and it looks like 2 do 1024x768 and the rest only do 800x600.

He also had some power cables that they were going to throw out, for some reason. I might need them in the future, so I grabbed them too.

Here's some pics...please excuse the mess, I'm trying to rearrange my room and optimize the space I have. They're all less than 200k @ 500x375.

http://server6.uploadit.org/files/synoptism-IMG_0025_resized.jpg - three monitors just sitting on the ground, after a bit of cleaning (they were a bit dirty)
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/synoptism-IMG_0008_resized.jpg - three more monitors on top of TV (I pushed them back and made room for a fourth after I took the picture)
http://server6.uploadit.org/files/synoptism-IMG_0024_resized.jpg - box of power cords (I counted 38)

I've always lurked this thread, but now I get to contribute something worthy to it. Hope you enjoy my find as much as I do!
 
jpmkm said:
Hell if the circus peanuts were sealed then I would eat them too. I love those things. Besides, we've probably sold worse stuff in my grocery store.
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Yes I was a young-un, but they were still sealed and within the expiration date as well. We also scored boxes of gum and some other types of candy. Guess Bashas couldn't sell it.
 
SJetski71 said:
What the heck were you doing eating food out of the garbage?
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It all depends on the food found, and when. Candy, wrapped? Score! Bags of chips? Score!

During the winter months I literally didn't have to buy any food. I got it all from one grocery store. Nature's fridge.

You can poo it all you want (and I know you will) but really, it's not all bad.
 
i was skating at an office building today, and i noticed this big open topped dumpster. i climbed inside and there was a TON of torn up carpet, but i could see a chair poking out and i found a cd and some rechargable batteries. tomorrow im gonna go back later and see whats underneath. ill update tomorrow.

P.S . the cd was a disk for some ups system

[edit] well, i got rained out, maybe it will stop later.
 
I went out tonight...Notta thing except for an inflatable kiddie pool behind Petco...Not much but I figure what they heck...My dog can play in it.
 
Ok, its getting close to the end of the month... This is the time to start looking hard at apartments and office space. People/businesses move in/out at the end of the month.
The best time to hit those type fo places are during daylight hours for apartments and early on the weekend (depending on dumpster emptying times - some offices have theirs emptied during the weekend) for the office space.
During a lite rain might be fine. But use your common sense - don't stick yourself into a big metal box during a thunderstorm...
The weather here has not been "considerate" of diving recently. (70mph straight winds are not good diving weather...) In Nashville, we have the 5th wettest summer on record. And most all the storms have been thunderstorms. So, I havent been able to dive as much as I would like.
I intend to look hard at Hickory Hollow, Green Hills, and Bellevue to see what I can find. Downtown is iffy, too many homeless (I have nothing against homeless, I am practically that poor myself, its just that a few have turf issues. Besides they need the stuff they find in those dumpsters more than I do...)
EDIT: still looking for brave souls in Nashville, TN interested in diving...
 
apparently, in milwaukee at least, you can get arrested for "prowling", meaning you dont have an actual reasoning to be driving around at a bad time of night. also its apparently illegal to go behind a closed business. we learned this the hard way (but got off with a warning, luckily)
 
I know this question may have been asked, but...

What is the leagality of DDing?
Is it different depending on where you live?
 
Some additional info. Yes it does vary from town to town, county to county, and state to state. So check all levels of law: State, County, Local. Check with the local cops, see what they think. Some will mess with you anyway, even if its totally legal. Avoid the locked & closed fence dumpsters. Those can get you in trouble. Trespassing or theft comes to mind when I see those. Expect to get dirty, smelly, etc. Wear good work gloves, long sleeves & think jeans or work pants as sharp objects can be the norm. Tetanus shots? Make sure yours is still within its experation date... :) Do NOT go alone. This way if you get hurt you have help. And having a lookout while you legs are sticking out of the dumpster is always a good idea. Always check out your target dumpsters beforehand. You do not want to accidently bump into the "wrong" crowd in the alleys. Drug dealers get a bit touchy when someone interupts their deal. My suggestion is to do the diving during daylight as most people do not think you are doing anything wrong during daylight hours. Sundays are best. Take flattened boxes with you as this will be your excuse in diving, you need more for a move. The boxes come in handy with holding your new "loot." The best places to look are behing office supply stores,discount clothing stores, apartment complexes (especially end of month), office complexes (also at end of month), and local colleges/universites. The college/university dumpsters can really be a gold mine at the end of the year. Vandy is in my locality and the long distance students throw away everything.
This may be different from other's opinion, take your ID. Having your ID on you makes a cop relax. They think you are up to something if you do not have it on you. Worse, thanks to a Supreme Court Ruling, if you do not have proper ID on you, the cops can hold you until they get proper confirmation of your ID. If you get stopped, be nice, smile, and offer your cover story about the boxes. Offer your ID if asked. Be nice to the cops and they generally will leave you be. NEVER run from a cop.
 
me and my two friends just got done with a night of diving across Orlando, we didn't really find jack, some cables, and a few little odd things like signs and product displays, but nothing really worth much

if you guys dive in Orlando and know some good spots, let me in on them :D

we hit up a bunch of major chains, all compactors as expected, and some game stores, the only places we had sucsess was the radio sacks, they just had a bunch of crap

we went to one, and found a security thing for use in store, and when we pulled on it it went off and made a beeping noise so we high tailed it out of there

anyways, it was pretty good fun, we just need to find some better areas to dive

BTW, hobos : scary
 
I still dive once a week.

This past dive yielded:
One Dell XPS T450 complete

One Dell Optiplex P3 Complete

Over 70 Hard drives..most work, but most are 2Gb
 
I dive at this "non-profit" computer literacy organizations dumpstar mostly.

The P3's were junk as they put it.

Funny though, they work fine.
 
Im not sure if this counts as dumpster diving but me and three of my friends found 4 pairs of brand new shoes hanging on a telephone wire behind the B-side store. Using a long pole we found, they held it and I climbed up and got all the shoes.
 
i think i should head out to 120th st in miami where ist right near an airport there are plenty of comp stores in 1 little block. my friends have found good stuff there.... i could use another suystem hehe
 
So who here has participated in or observed a "Dive Rumble" where two rival dive gangs meet and dispute their dumpster territory?
 
THERE ARE DIVE GANGS?!?!?! do they have like glocks that they find behind a gun shop or something??!? personally, i find that incredibly stupid. i just go with my brother or with some people at lans.
 
Can anyone post a compactor on this thread or give a link to one.
I know this may be stupid, but I was driving by a Best Buy and wasn't sure if it was a compactor or just a big dumpster. I have not gone yet, but I think I am gonna plan a trip... how many people going is to many?

Just two the best or would three be better?
 
Compacters are pretty easy to spot. They are big and are closed at the top. If you can't find a way into it then that means you probably aren't supposed to be in there. There is also usually some cables and stuff coming off of it.
 
Just came back from a dumpster diving run. In this town anyway, seems like all the bigger stores use a compactor. During my search at some "mom & pop" type computer stores, I found a whole pallet full of monitors (used) and all had labels with the word "Bad" written on them. I just wasn't in the mood to sort through them and maybe find a couple that would even be worth trying to fix. I also found lots and lots of "pos" cases being thrown away. I sorted through them and came up with only a couple of 80 mm fans. Most of the cases were either the desktop type or old 486 mid tower types with no side panels. I have no idea what they do with all the side panels. I searched the dumpsters nearby and no sign of them..oh well. I have yet to come across a good small case that's begging for an external water cooling setup.

On my way back home, I found an old gateway 2000 server case (missing side panels...sigh) sitting on the side of the road about one block from my house It's in good structural shape. I'm sitting here trying to figure out what it wants done to it.It's sitting there stripped down just begging for something. I'm going to stare at it a while and it will eventually come to me.It will make a nice modding project, but that's for another section and another time.

I was on my way home thinking I had been defeated when all along I should have just checked my own neighborhood. Bah! I won't let that stop me. It's still fun going out there and finding stuff for free. Ya never know.... heh :p
 
Jaffrin said:
Can anyone post a compactor on this thread or give a link to one.
I know this may be stupid, but I was driving by a Best Buy and wasn't sure if it was a compactor or just a big dumpster. I have not gone yet, but I think I am gonna plan a trip... how many people going is to many?

Just two the best or would three be better?
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pic00104_lr.jpg


hope i was helpful
 
Hey guys,
Back to actual dumpser diving experiences. We went the other night, Monday, and found some pretty cool stuff. We found a black bag full of toys, exhaust pipes for Harley Davidson's (brand new), Tons of magazines, Pocket Watch, American bill validator, and a bunch of other random crap. I will post pictures. Anyway, now for the story behind the madness.

I was in a dumpster looking through a box when I spotted a bag full of rotting hamburgers that looked like onions. Immediately I knew that there were Vampires in the area, little did I know that we would later run into one. Anyway we drove around for a while and then drove across the highway to the "bad part" of town. While driving down a back alley, we saw a ladder against a building. We all got out of the car to look in the dumpster and then all of a sudden... "Hey what are you kids doing down there" in a very foreign accent. We looked up, and there was the vampire... smoking a cigarette... or some other herb rolled up. We then proceeded to get back in the car and turn around. We got to the next dumpster, opened it, and found a plastic bag. This was no ordinary plastic bag, it was behind an Indian restaurant and had maggots all over it. After that we just had some normal experiences, found a dumpster with electronics inside. This dumpster, however, was locked and we became thorougly pissed off. Enough rambling.

We'll post pics soon.

The JaiQuest Team
 
my sister and i went to bestbuy last night at 3 in the morning, so we opened the dumpster found some ide cables, a cracked screen emachine moniter, and a streaded sony vaio desktop (i think the parts are still good) so my sister pulled the car up and she got out of the car then this security jeep pulled up and a man with weird accent yelled out DROP The THINGS GO AWAY NOWWW! NOWW!!! and btw his yellow lights atop the jeep were flashing mad bright. so we didnt want any atention and we sped away without the parts. awhh man. we gona try circut city, staples, and bath and body LOL
 
You're lucky.. all the big stores (bestbuy, compusa, circuit city, office max, office depot, even radio shack..) around here have compactors. Forget about getting "good stuff" from those types of places around here. I am relegated to either CC (curbside collecting) or the smaller shops that don't throw anything "good" away.These smaller places strip all the cables and stuff. Any power supplies I find usually have the wires cut (I know, I have a soldering station and I'm not afraid to use it...lol). Usually I just get a couple of 80mm fans each time. Oh well, the quest will continue.

...my $0.02...
 
ati_azn said:
my sister and i went to bestbuy last night at 3 in the morning, so we opened the dumpster found some ide cables, a cracked screen emachine moniter, and a streaded sony vaio desktop (i think the parts are still good) so my sister pulled the car up and she got out of the car then this security jeep pulled up and a man with weird accent yelled out DROP The THINGS GO AWAY NOWWW! NOWW!!! and btw his yellow lights atop the jeep were flashing mad bright. so we didnt want any atention and we sped away without the parts. awhh man. we gona try circut city, staples, and bath and body LOL
Click to expand...

pussy -- he probably thought you were stealing and you just needed to explain what you were doing to him

lol

sucks that you missed that desktop..try going back tonight, someone earlier in the thread found a smashed up system that had a 2.4 GHz or something P4 that worked, smashed systems make good finds.
 
We're actually not sure that he was a vampire... but he did look pretty scary. Maybe next time I'll get a pic of him, I think we're going diving again tonight to get some more magazines from Barnes and Noble. Either way, it was a horrible experience, the vampire that is.

JaiQuest Crew
 
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