Free Stuff for the Taking

“Hey Leigh!” I frantically call to my sister as I hurry into the house.  “There’s some good stuff down the street and I need you to help me carry it!”

This is a familiar scenario.  Close friends, relatives, acquaintances, passersby, anyone with strong arms or a large vehicle may be called upon at a moment’s notice for emergency curbside pickup assistance. HI. My name is Lauren Urbschat and I’m addicted to free stuff.  

Today I am victorious.  I score a freestanding cupboard, a giant old dictionary resembling the book from The Never Ending Story, an encyclopedia of cookery and a hanging scale complete with instructions on how to weigh your catch of the day or perhaps newborn baby.

My attraction to free stuff stems from an undergraduate art education at Carnegie Mellon University, but my habit was kicked into high gear when I moved into my first apartment in Shadyside.  Having grown up in a New England suburb where the most you might find by the curb was a mailbox or lawn jockey, bulk trash pickup was a new phenomenon for me. I would take walks in the evening and discovered that certain nights were like Christmas with wonderful surprises around every corner.

Curb Appeal
I now own a house in Bloomfield and aside from my bed and a couple of select Construction Junction finds, I have furnished the entire thing for free…at least twice.  Highlights include: several dressers, a nice wicker two-seater, lamps of all shapes and sizes, a hutch, a sideboard, desks, tables, chairs, a great old ladder that I use as a magazine rack and not one but two porch swings.

In Pittsburgh, come spring, when basements and attics are annually de-junked, these magical evenings bring a bountiful harvest if you just take the time to look.  And don’t be afraid to travel around and walk the streets—each neighborhood has its own night and flavor.

You can also find out about free stuff before it hits the street with Craigslist curb alerts.  Click the free link ironically tucked within the for sale section, but have your emergency assistance lined up in advance as you’re racing against both the trash man and your fellow bargain hunters. 

Give and Take
While I love the thrill of a good curbside find as much as anybody, I can’t help but wonder about all the things I can’t salvage.  I like to think that someone else will claim them, but alas, I know that every week many useful things still end up in landfills rather than in loving hands.

This is where the The Freecycle Network comes in.  Unlike my beloved bulk trash night, The Freecyle Network is not just a place to go to get stuff for nothing.  It's a place to give what you have and don't need or receive what you need and don't have.  It is a free cycle of giving which keeps over 400 tons of stuff out of landfills daily!  

Founded with a single email on May 1, 2003 in the city of Tucson Arizona, The Freecycle Network has grown to encompass over 4,140 cities in over 80 countries.  With over 25,000 new members joining each week, the movement is now over four million strong.

Anne Quaranta, avid gardener and vigilant environmentalist, is one of the two moderators for the Pittsburgh branch of The Freecyle Network. She got involved after her family insisted that she stop with the incessant tchotchke dropping.  (tchotchke drop: to leave an inexpensive souvenir, trinket or ornament in the home of a loved one without their knowledge.)  “I had all these things that I didn’t want but that were too nice to throw away!” she exclaims over the phone.  “So I would leave little ‘surprises’ every time I would visit friends or family.”

Quaranta, who grew up in Squirrel Hill and now lives on the edge of Butler County, joined the Pittsburgh chapter shortly after it officially formed in 2004, and she became a moderator in 2005 along side Jamie Oravitz, one of the original founders.  “The thing is, it’s not so much about the free stuff as it is about getting out into your neighborhood and meeting your neighbors.  It’s a valuable community and environmental resource.”

The Freecyle Network is globally local.  Each city has volunteer moderators and a unique email group.  Anyone living in that city is able to post items they have to give away or to seek items they may be able to use.  The guiding principal is that everything has to be free with no strings attached, “a grand cyber curbside.”

Word is spreading.  At the time of our conversation, Pittsburgh’s Freecycle group was up to 7,948 members with about 15 people joining everyday (hint, hint).

Quaranta just can’t say enough good things about the group.  “Initially people might be skeptical about having strangers come by and pick things up.  But for me, the best part is all the people I’ve met through our group.  I’ve had nothing but good experiences.”  She encourages everyone to join because “More people equals more opportunity.”

Most recently, I gave away hundreds of vending machine capsules that I had salvaged from someone’s art installation to a woman who wanted them for a family reunion picnic activity.  I was as thrilled to get them out of my basement, as she was to pick them up off my porch.  She even left a thank you note.

What’s the weirdest thing Quaranta’s seen posted?  An old coffin and gravestone (unused) that were promptly snatched up by someone with big plans for Halloween.

And so it goes.  One man’s trash really is another girl’s treasure.  

“You don’t need that,” my sister says as we walk home past a four-foot tall plastic Absolute Vodka bottle nestled against a pile of garbage.  She’s right, I don’t.  But someone else might.


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Lauren Urbschat writes, cooks and lives in Bloomfield and she will happily take your stuff to Goodwill if you just let her have first dibs.


(www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/pw/html/recycling.html)

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Photographs of Lauren and her stuff, copyright Brian Cohen