Or should the title of this be "How I made $200,000 per year going through other people's garbage?  " That is something I do not wish to try. No telling what is going to bite you!!!

 
I have a clean-up day coming soon whereby I set out all my 'unwanteds, furniture, toys, junk, etc.' near the curb for the local Waste Management to come by and pick up. I have been doing this for years. Many years ago, our city used to have a general clean-up day whereby EVERYBODY would participate on the very same day and there would be stuff lining curbs for miles and miles around. One evening, I was coming home from work at 12:30AM (just before the pickup) and everybody had their stuff near the street. I was two blocks from home and I could not drive down the street because there were about a dozen cars parked in the middle of the street and people were racing up and down the street looking for 'goodies'. There were cars all over the place.

I thought about putting up barricades and charging a $10.00 'rummage fee' per car to enter. Or better yet, you could put on some kind of orange jumpsuit (or bright flourescent yellow so these people can see you) stick on an official-looking patch and tell these people that they have to pay some kind of $10.00 fee for environmental something or other. With your computer, you can design and print out a legitimate-looking ID badge, run down to Office Depot and buy a good-quality (if they have good quality) ID plastic/leather ID badgeholder and attach it my shirt. And I could get away with it.

Nowadays, you schedule an appointment for your own 'personal yearly pickup,' and they come by on the designated day and haul your stuff away. Much better. They ADVISE you not to put the stuff outside until the night before or better yet, the morning of the pickup for reasons I have stated above.

On regular garbage pickup days, I see people strolling the neighborhoods rummaging through the recyclable bins and removing the things they can get quick $$$$ on and dumping them in those big black heavy-duty (re-useable) plastic bags. They usually drive older beat-up cars, so either that's a disguise or they aren't making big bucks off the stuff....just meal money so they don't have to eat Top Ramen or Cup of Noodles all the time. I suppose the 'flea market people' roll in with their pickups earlier and retrieve furniture, toys, used toilets, mirrors, etc. I live on a cul-de-sac (no exit) in a decent neighborhood and these people really scour the place. Maybe somebody wrote publications showing the best neighborhoods to do your scavenging.

Okay...now my question is... Do you think that a lot of people are making decent sums of money and do you see a lot of scavengers around?

All in all, I do see quite a number of people running around on garbage days, etc. and I think that they are making some money on this.  However, there must be some entrepenour's out there who have really capitalized on this and made bundles.  Not many, but some. As humorous as it seems, it appears likely that there are individuals with writing and excellent bullshit skills who have written publications on this issue.  But the people who are writing about it can not be the ones who are actually doing the serious scavenging.  They saw another way..... convincing the public that there is loads of money to be make.... first hand accounts?  B.S.

There are loads of writers/entrepenours out there who have written those real estate books, foreclosures, etc. Quite frankly, if you are actually making tons of money doing something, you do not wish anybody to get the inside information.

I am a vendor and a lot of my aquaintances are also.  We sell many different things and occasionally come across an item that really kicks but.  Do you think that I am crazy enough to go around telling people about it or writing about it.  Hell no.  There are nosey-dozies that ask me for my suppliers info, etc. and I do not provide anything to them.  Let them learn through the School of Hard Knocks.... just like I did.