I was going to write a rant about how a woman mocked me for carrying "trash" the other night (because I confronted her about something wrong I saw her do), or how it's nauseating how the same names get massive whale upvotes for terrible content, but deleted it all.
I will simply post about something constructive... how I've relentlessly sacrificed to prioritize the environment.
The irony (for the small group that cares and reads this), is that I've debated trying to change things with brute force by whaling up on Steem or Hive to a degree that'd squash the over-rewarded regulars to combat the problem. To imagine the look on their faces when their chain metric reports showed an anomaly that they realized was legit and overshadowed them. Then again, each and every time, often just one click away, I stopped myself. It's not right to throw money at a problem to address it. It's not about money and I won't sell my principles out. It's about associating with people I either respect or don't, a respect earned from how they treat the 99%. It'd sure be a joy to reward people who truly deserved or needed it, you know, the opposite. It makes me sick, but I'll stay in my lane, an investor with the right spirit, lost.
People judge a book by its cover or face-tuned pics in this cancel culture, much like the lame woman who yelled at me that I was carrying "trash." Instead of being upset by her words, I went home with the item I'd found and spent 3 hours working on it to be ready to sell this weekend. I went to bed at 8 AM after turning a negative into a positive.
Speaking of books, here's a preview of what's sadly normal by me...
Here are more items I personally sacrificed my time (mainly in the middle of the night) to salvage from the curbside recycling and recently resold to those who clearly needed them. This keeps landfills and recycling centers less full and people from buying new, while saving them money. I make some money in the process as icing on the cake.
I found this 34 pound portable air conditioner setup on Friday night and sold it to a woman who just had cancer surgery for a discounted $100. She's about to start chemo, so I felt no need to get the market value on it.
I sold this 35 pound air purifier today for $150 cash to a guy who eagerly drove from 45 minutes away to pick it up. I've found and sold a couple of these over the years. My price was a steal, especially since he has several of them in his home to know what they're worth.
This Miele vacuum was sitting in a garbage bin at the start of my walk last week. It was a good one in phenomenal shape. I walked it to a luxury building doorman and asked if I could plug it in to test it and it worked. I cleaned it up and sold it to my repeat buyer who has a cleaning business for a discounted $120 because she always comes next day. She also got a better price because she didn't need the power head (which I can sell for $80). Interestingly, the vacuum had a clear small plastic card caught in the power head that made an awful sound, which is likely why the clueless owner tossed it out. The unit was barely used and weighed 15 pounds and 5 ounces.
Proof of the find as always...
Found and flipped in 2 days...
I sold two of these textbooks of roughly 3.5 pounds each for $90 and $103. Not impressed?
I took all of the books in the front here that are worth about $2,000. I cherry-picked what was practical out of a monster set of books put out by a local school I now hate for wasting all this material.
Proof, also found with two Lego minifigures sitting on top for fun.
That's a lot of weight, but hey someone's post about nonsense is worth 10x what the Hive community generally values my effort at.
I sold this 7 pound 3 ounce vintage Le Creuset dutch oven for $90 to a pair of hipsters. It took just a little bleach water to restore the nice coloring inside where the enamel was intact.
Look familiar?
I also left those nice stoneware bowls out in a more prominent space on the sidewalk, along with an expensive crystal wine glass, since I didn't want to carry them around for a few hours.
Bonus: I had another one in forest green that I gave to a friend for her birthday a week ago... It's not about the money. It's about the benefits of helping the planet and others. I don't need a trophy or some inflationary Hive influence token, but I do need to know that I'm making an impact while most are concerned with things of far less consequence. That's the influence I care about.
Lastly, I sold 6 pounds 7 ounces of LEGO Duplos to parents for their 2 year old for $40 cash. It was a simple deal, but if you didn't catch my last post... I found 17 large black garbage bags of Lego Duplos and spent 4 hours walking them home and up 4 flights. I also found 4 more large bags in the same spot last week to reach 21 total bags. I've started going through them and it's amazing how much volume there is. They're ALL perfectly clean, many sealed new, and almost all already sorted in bags by type.
Stacking power!
Proof of the first 17 after battling passing out a few times:
Proof of 4 more:
I'll have some fun pics of what these bags look like once fully processed. Shame on the school that tossed these. I'm going to call them up and let them know how sick it was for them to not donate this stuff.
Hundreds of pounds here. Please do more to help.
Bonus story: I was walking to UPS yesterday and saw a man putting this Mac computer out on the curb. I asked him if it worked and he said it was dead. I asked for permission to take it and he said sure. I took it home, plugged it in, and it worked perfectly with all of his family's accounts on the home screen. His loss. It's not super valuable, but someone will keep it alive.
Tada!
Summary:
- 7 items sold for $693 ($500 as cash).
- 2 items shipped.
- 1 local cab ride needed with the textbooks for $12.30.
- 105 pounds saved. Real influence.
Thanks for your interest and support. Forgive my rant, I just get very deflated seeing the same people promoted and rewarded for the same old low quality fluff. It continues to send the wrong message. Share people, share.
Double winning... getting cash for items others see as trash and preventing "waste" from clogging precious land! Awesome! Another win... people who want the stuff get it cheaper, all while you have extra funds to invest in crypto...
Sounds like you should smile at all those who mock. People spend hours begging near where I live. Spend time reselling unwanted stuff to people who want it...
Great post!
Kudos to you, wonderful job. You're doing so much for the planet. Keep doing what you do and the best will come to you.
Throwing out a Miele!! A quality item like that would be a dream for me...
You've left me in suspense, now. I want the rant! 🤣
I feel you. Sometimes I think our priorities and beliefs in what's of value or importance are way off the mark.
Hey now, you just keep being you....Lord, look how far you've come from the beginning!!
You are doing wonderful things, for the environment, for yourself and for others who need the items you sell.
Don't let others make you feel less that what you are...you know your worth and that's really all that matters...just keep going.
Thanks thanks. Sometimes I just need a kick to keep pushing, sometimes I need some nice words like these to understand the why behind it. I've chosen this path for now and remain committed. Selling 25+ pounds of Legos in a few hours to remind myself why I do this.
Good work man. Glad that its rewarding you, monetary value wise. Youre doing the work that some people dont want to do. Goes to show how many people would rather just dump things instead of take little more responsibility.
And keep up the good vibes, ill help support your content.
Thanks for the positivity before I head to bed now. I know I'm on the right track, but it's good to get a pat on the back every once in a while when the effort generally seems to go so overlooked. I've been here for 4+ years and it still feels like I'm on the ground floor of the influencers here, despite going to conferences and meeting many of those who pull the strings. Regardless, you helped pick me up here and I appreciate it.
Hey thats pretty cool though man. Your mission to clean and recycle things, and that youre trying to be one of the O.Gs around here. Just keep at it i suppose. Im not good at posting stuff, i been working like an animal and my life is slightly boring i guess haha, but theres a part of me that wants to try putting up a post once a day. Even a few bucks worth every post can really help to stack up.
Ive said a few times when i comment, but i think theres a lot of cool people on this platform, were still a hidden gem of some sort. Gonna be goods and bads, and i can imagine its tough to be consistent with posting and also tough to keep people voting on content. Good words tho man, keep at it...
Sometimes you just have to do what you know is best or what excites you regardless of those around. Always going to be condescending jerks and arrogant privileged asshats. Can't let that stop you from doing good/fun stuff.
I've not been around as long as most and I truly enjoy this platform. But I've came very close to quitting it many times already. Not so much because of things that happen to me, but things I see whales doing to others or just things about the platform in general that I don't like. Single downvotes cancelling out hundreds of upvotes. The railing against self voting or vote trading... only to see them doing it to each other. Or the botting, claiming it is for the good of the platform, then not apologizing to those it harms.
Personally I want Hive to do well and am somewhat invested. Though I still think there are a few glaring issues with it, especially as a social platform, that is going to stall its growth for a long time.
Thanks for sharing your view. I've definitely taken your stance on doing what I want and pushing through any noise. People usually make judgments because they have no clue what I'm doing, and then make assumptions based on whatever they've experienced in the past themselves. I'm pretty thick skinned, but every once in a while I get a dent in my armor.
Regarding the votes, it just boggles my mind to a painful degree how (insert word here) some of the larger accounts can be, unless they simply don't care about their behavior and just want to keep things comfortable for themselves. Earning short-term is more valuable than building the community up around them to support sustained organic growth. Unfortunately, a bunch of them together with voting power is far too much density to overcome. Instead of investing any money, I've just invested my time for community and entertainment. I've also used it to find motivation for what I do, and help inspire others to try to find more ways to help their local environments/be more resourceful.
You need a van and some storage space, a workshop where you can clean and fix these things. Must be difficult when you have not enough space. On the other hand, congrats. Those books ... 🤦♀ Then schools are complaining for not having funds.
Ironically, that's the next phase I'm trying to determine. My landlord has a first floor commercial storefront potentially opening up at a reasonable rental price about 10 blocks south of me, which would be very intriguing to pursue to at least separate the inventory from my living space. The van is also something I've debated for a long time. The thing is that my neighborhood is best to walk through to be thorough. A van would be ideal for larger finds and for scouting areas outside of my immediate neighborhood, but I'd bury myself in finds without a larger space to work in. As the bull run hopefully continues, more and more options will open up as I consider what the next step will be. I'd also love to involve others here to help with listings and shipments so I can focus on my best skill of finding stuff everywhere I go. Thanks for the feedback.
Well, good luck with your plans. I hope you get the space as that would be a step forward.
Great…another vacuum hose. I feel you are just taunting me at this point.
Seriously though…kick ass man! Such awesome finds and an absolutely amazing feeling it must be to not only give lots of items a second chance in life but to make bank while doing it. Oh yeah…and the planet benefits!
As for the issues here…it’s always going to be like that sadly.
Hey did you get my page about the hose? I'll send a singing telegram tomorrow if you'll be home.
I’m guessing the carrier pigeon I sent died as I still have yet to hear back regarding the hose. My floors are super fuzzy as I can’t vacuum without it. Super insensitive.
I have that exact portable air conditioner. It was purchased new for somewhere between $300-$400. I used it initially to cool a closed in back porch area. It's come in handy a couple of times when the central air was broken too. I can't imagine somebody just throwing something like that away.
That caliber of stuff is constantly outside here. I don't always take them because it bottlenecks me from finding more things on that night when I have to bring it home, but this one was easy to take since I had a slow night so far. It literally sold the next afternoon, so it was good to get it in and out quick to not take up too much floor space here. Thanks for the comment.