There’s something about a pile of stuff on a nature strip that’s hard to resist.
By Catherine Watson
I PASSED John just as he was turning into Dixon Street so I did a U-ey and followed him. I’d been meaning to check out the pile too. Chairs, couches, a giant TV, kitchen cupboards, a vacuum cleaner, a baby’s highchair, cupboards and shelves were laid out on the wide nature strip. It looked like a vast outdoor living room.
As we inspected the pile, the owner brought out more goodies. He said he’d collected too much stuff and now it was time to pass it on. “If anyone can use it, I’m very happy.” We were all of an age so we complained cheerfully about the throwaway society, forgetting our own part in it, until the late afternoon chill dispersed us.
I PASSED John just as he was turning into Dixon Street so I did a U-ey and followed him. I’d been meaning to check out the pile too. Chairs, couches, a giant TV, kitchen cupboards, a vacuum cleaner, a baby’s highchair, cupboards and shelves were laid out on the wide nature strip. It looked like a vast outdoor living room.
As we inspected the pile, the owner brought out more goodies. He said he’d collected too much stuff and now it was time to pass it on. “If anyone can use it, I’m very happy.” We were all of an age so we complained cheerfully about the throwaway society, forgetting our own part in it, until the late afternoon chill dispersed us.
A friend of mine, a rental agent, once showed me a house from which the tenants had done a moonlight flit because they hadn’t paid the rent for several months. Wardrobes, cupboards, benches were crammed with stuff, most of it new. The pantry was full of food, as were the fridge and freezer. They had abandoned the lot to start a new life, who knew where. My friend told me this was common.
In an affluent country like Australia, even poor people have too much stuff. Our lives are spent getting it and getting rid of it.
Late last year a run-down house near me started disgorging treasures on the nature strip: camping equipment, household appliances, furniture, sports stuff, most of it brand new. It made me think of Raymond Carver’s famous short short story: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I wondered about the back story here. Divorce, a death? Or perhaps, like most of us, someone bought the gear and never got around to the activity.
New stock was added to the pile each day. My neighbours and I wandered innocently past as though we were on our evening walk. We rarely came home empty handed. I grabbed a brand new tent, an old fold-up card table, a solar shower and two solar phone chargers still in their original packaging.
Best of all were two solar lamps that proved unexpectedly useful just a few weeks later when the big storm hit. When the power came back on in Wonthaggi I gave them to my friend Liz in The Gurdies, who was without power for a couple of weeks. The rest of the stuff I’ll probably put back on my own nature strip one day. If I think I’ll ever use a tent or solar shower I’m kidding myself. I never liked to get too far from plumbing.
In an affluent country like Australia, even poor people have too much stuff. Our lives are spent getting it and getting rid of it.
Late last year a run-down house near me started disgorging treasures on the nature strip: camping equipment, household appliances, furniture, sports stuff, most of it brand new. It made me think of Raymond Carver’s famous short short story: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I wondered about the back story here. Divorce, a death? Or perhaps, like most of us, someone bought the gear and never got around to the activity.
New stock was added to the pile each day. My neighbours and I wandered innocently past as though we were on our evening walk. We rarely came home empty handed. I grabbed a brand new tent, an old fold-up card table, a solar shower and two solar phone chargers still in their original packaging.
Best of all were two solar lamps that proved unexpectedly useful just a few weeks later when the big storm hit. When the power came back on in Wonthaggi I gave them to my friend Liz in The Gurdies, who was without power for a couple of weeks. The rest of the stuff I’ll probably put back on my own nature strip one day. If I think I’ll ever use a tent or solar shower I’m kidding myself. I never liked to get too far from plumbing.
I know a lot of blokes who can’t bear to throw things out because they might come in handy one day. Frank is one of them. He phoned late one night after I got home from work. We own the small paddock behind us. “I didn’t want you to get a shock in the morning,” he said. “George was carting the old house to the tip so I told him to dump it in the paddock. Save on tip fees.”
Gulp! A pile of rubble, full of termites and asbestos, like every old cottage in Wonthaggi. But why? Well, Frank’s a big picture kind of guy. He was thinking winter bonfires with the old weatherboards and using the old plaster walls to lime his garden. It did eventually disappear, though it took a good few years.
I owe Frank for my bike, which he rescued from a hard rubbish collection. A 1980s Cyclops Graduate. No crouching over the handlebars on this. It’s a very upright kind of bike. I feel like the Queen of the Netherlands riding it. Then someone I worked with at Dandenong brought me another bike he’d rescued from a hard rubbish collection in Moorabbin, a Centurion Suntourer from the 1970s. “When I saw it, I immediately thought of you,” he said. I’ve always wondered what he meant but he was right. Fifteen years later, it’s still my favourite bike.
Gulp! A pile of rubble, full of termites and asbestos, like every old cottage in Wonthaggi. But why? Well, Frank’s a big picture kind of guy. He was thinking winter bonfires with the old weatherboards and using the old plaster walls to lime his garden. It did eventually disappear, though it took a good few years.
I owe Frank for my bike, which he rescued from a hard rubbish collection. A 1980s Cyclops Graduate. No crouching over the handlebars on this. It’s a very upright kind of bike. I feel like the Queen of the Netherlands riding it. Then someone I worked with at Dandenong brought me another bike he’d rescued from a hard rubbish collection in Moorabbin, a Centurion Suntourer from the 1970s. “When I saw it, I immediately thought of you,” he said. I’ve always wondered what he meant but he was right. Fifteen years later, it’s still my favourite bike.
Some of you may not know about hard rubbish collections, the greatest recycling enterprise ever invented. You put out your useless junk and picked up other people’s good stuff. The council cancelled it because the contractors complained that “unauthorised” people. ie. us, the citizens of Bass Coast, were taking all the good stuff!
But people power will find a way. A de facto hard rubbish swap site has been set up on the corner of Reed and Cameron streets. A strange assortment of items regularly appears and disappears.
I know a man with five sheds. But no matter how many sheds you have, it’s never enough because you just get more stuff.
My old neighbour Jim collected firewood. He couldn’t drive past a fallen tree. The council passed a special law making it illegal to take wood off the roadsides so he used to set off before dawn, long before the bylaws officers were up and about, and spent long contented afternoons at home, listening to his transistor and sawing up the wood. He called in to Coldon two or three times a week to pick up the timber offcuts. He could hardly get his car into the garage any more for the firewood and he filled up several sheds out the back.
When Jim died, the sheds were bulldozed and taken to the tip, along with the firewood, by then rotten and full of borer. A reminder that sometimes you can hang on to stuff for TOO long.
When I was youngish I loved buying second hand books and records. These days I read books from the library. Between library visits, I pick out something from my own bookshelves, now much diminished and down to books I love. As I finish a book, I put it in the recycling bin, knowing that I haven’t got enough years left to read it again. “Goodbye old friend,” I think.
Sometimes letting go isn’t so easy. When my good friend John was working at Wonthaggi Recyclers he used to bring my books back to me. “I saw this on the sorting line and thought you might like it ...”
Most of us, as we get older, long to get rid of stuff. My mother was plagued by being made custodian of her mother’s antique furniture. My friend Laura has been doing what she describes as a “death clean”, getting rid of stuff now so her daughter doesn’t have to do it later.
I have friends who inherited their parents’ and grandparents’ dinner sets, not one but two or three, for 10 people. Seeing that I was using plastic spoons, a friend tried to give me her parents’ expensive cutlery set. I said no but I should have taken it.
These days, when someone offers me something, I express my gratitude and take it to an op shop, preferably in another town. I know I’m doing them a favour.
But people power will find a way. A de facto hard rubbish swap site has been set up on the corner of Reed and Cameron streets. A strange assortment of items regularly appears and disappears.
I know a man with five sheds. But no matter how many sheds you have, it’s never enough because you just get more stuff.
My old neighbour Jim collected firewood. He couldn’t drive past a fallen tree. The council passed a special law making it illegal to take wood off the roadsides so he used to set off before dawn, long before the bylaws officers were up and about, and spent long contented afternoons at home, listening to his transistor and sawing up the wood. He called in to Coldon two or three times a week to pick up the timber offcuts. He could hardly get his car into the garage any more for the firewood and he filled up several sheds out the back.
When Jim died, the sheds were bulldozed and taken to the tip, along with the firewood, by then rotten and full of borer. A reminder that sometimes you can hang on to stuff for TOO long.
When I was youngish I loved buying second hand books and records. These days I read books from the library. Between library visits, I pick out something from my own bookshelves, now much diminished and down to books I love. As I finish a book, I put it in the recycling bin, knowing that I haven’t got enough years left to read it again. “Goodbye old friend,” I think.
Sometimes letting go isn’t so easy. When my good friend John was working at Wonthaggi Recyclers he used to bring my books back to me. “I saw this on the sorting line and thought you might like it ...”
Most of us, as we get older, long to get rid of stuff. My mother was plagued by being made custodian of her mother’s antique furniture. My friend Laura has been doing what she describes as a “death clean”, getting rid of stuff now so her daughter doesn’t have to do it later.
I have friends who inherited their parents’ and grandparents’ dinner sets, not one but two or three, for 10 people. Seeing that I was using plastic spoons, a friend tried to give me her parents’ expensive cutlery set. I said no but I should have taken it.
These days, when someone offers me something, I express my gratitude and take it to an op shop, preferably in another town. I know I’m doing them a favour.