What's Up My Little Butterflies ?
Lately I have been hearing stories from my friends about dumpster diving, and all the treasures that can be found. Am I the only one that refuses to dig through a dumpster ? I used to as a kid to collect soda cans to recycle, and that was disgusting enough. Shop owners would see me, a ten year old in their dumpsters, and feel sorry for me, thinking I was starving. I was just trying to save enough money to buy a nice aquarium. I did have a nice aquarium for a while. It was fun while it lasted. I used to cut out magazine pages for the background, and every trip to the fish store was a huge deal for me.
But anywho, I have never dived in dumpsters for food, clothing or furniture. Now I won't knock it completely, because I know that many people have found success with it, and have furnished their entire apartments with dumpster finds.
Let's just say that any possible curiosity I had about dumpster diving for the stuff mentioned above, was killed three years ago when I had bedbugs.
Over three years ago, I found my first apartment, and was ready to live on my own for the first time in my life. Because accessing my place with a truck was so diffcult, and mattresses are so expensive, the only other alternative was to buy the mattress from the previous tenant. She seemed like a sweet person, and the apartment was clean, and the apartment manager encouraged me to buy the mattress.
So, I bought the mattress. It took a couple of weeks for anything to happen, but then I slowly started to itch. It slowly got worse, and the itching got so bad that I had to find the source of the problem. I couldn't take it anymore. My instincts just led me to the bed, and I took off the sheets, of the bed, and got to the mattress which was bloody. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, so I decided to flip the mattress over, and saw the large bedbugs sitting there, with a huge new litter of newly birthed bugs crawling around. At that moment, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I started to hyperventilate.
I of course went to the managers/owners and they told me there was no way the previous tenant could have brought in bugs. They told me they could be anything, and I told them to see for themselves. They took some bugs to get tested, and voila ! I was right.
After that day, I refused to sleep in my place. I was so lucky that my friend took me in. I lasted a total of two weeks in my new place, and have since not lived alone in a place I could call my own. Of course the managers tried to insinuate that I had brought them bugs. I told them to just give me back my deposit and I would leave, and never mention anything. I just wanted to get out of there. I begged them to let me leave immediately, but they refused. They could not understand why I was so hysterical. I had to leave my stuff there until they could heat treat the place, which was another week.
Luckily they gave me my deposit back, and I got the fuck out of there. They could not understand why I wanted to move. Their reasoning was that since the problem was taken care of, I should just give them another chance, but that is not how bedbugs operate. They are hard to kill, and the psychological aspect of dealing with bedbugs is way worse than the physical aspect, and the physical part is torture too. I had over a hundred bites, that would not go away. It took three weeks and loads of Benadryl for things to calm down.
I was calm and polite, and gave the managers a chance to rectify the problem, and they did. I think at the end, we were both happy to get away from each other.
So the moral of my story, is DO NOT DUMPSTER DIVE !!!! I won't even buy furniture at Goodwill.
I will buy clothing at Goodwill, but I will wash it and dry it in high heat to kill any possible bugs. But furniture is such a gamble. Televisions can harbor roaches, and beds and dressers are a hiding p
After that experience, I got rid of over half of my belongings and vowed to become a minimalist. I now hate clutter, and don't really buy things unless I need them. I enjoy not owning a lot of things.
Anyway, I think that is all for now. I guess all of the talk of dumpster diving lately has made me go a little crazy and I had to share.
Ciaosies !
Lately I have been hearing stories from my friends about dumpster diving, and all the treasures that can be found. Am I the only one that refuses to dig through a dumpster ? I used to as a kid to collect soda cans to recycle, and that was disgusting enough. Shop owners would see me, a ten year old in their dumpsters, and feel sorry for me, thinking I was starving. I was just trying to save enough money to buy a nice aquarium. I did have a nice aquarium for a while. It was fun while it lasted. I used to cut out magazine pages for the background, and every trip to the fish store was a huge deal for me.
But anywho, I have never dived in dumpsters for food, clothing or furniture. Now I won't knock it completely, because I know that many people have found success with it, and have furnished their entire apartments with dumpster finds.
Let's just say that any possible curiosity I had about dumpster diving for the stuff mentioned above, was killed three years ago when I had bedbugs.
Over three years ago, I found my first apartment, and was ready to live on my own for the first time in my life. Because accessing my place with a truck was so diffcult, and mattresses are so expensive, the only other alternative was to buy the mattress from the previous tenant. She seemed like a sweet person, and the apartment was clean, and the apartment manager encouraged me to buy the mattress.
So, I bought the mattress. It took a couple of weeks for anything to happen, but then I slowly started to itch. It slowly got worse, and the itching got so bad that I had to find the source of the problem. I couldn't take it anymore. My instincts just led me to the bed, and I took off the sheets, of the bed, and got to the mattress which was bloody. I was starting to feel sick to my stomach, so I decided to flip the mattress over, and saw the large bedbugs sitting there, with a huge new litter of newly birthed bugs crawling around. At that moment, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I started to hyperventilate.
I of course went to the managers/owners and they told me there was no way the previous tenant could have brought in bugs. They told me they could be anything, and I told them to see for themselves. They took some bugs to get tested, and voila ! I was right.
After that day, I refused to sleep in my place. I was so lucky that my friend took me in. I lasted a total of two weeks in my new place, and have since not lived alone in a place I could call my own. Of course the managers tried to insinuate that I had brought them bugs. I told them to just give me back my deposit and I would leave, and never mention anything. I just wanted to get out of there. I begged them to let me leave immediately, but they refused. They could not understand why I was so hysterical. I had to leave my stuff there until they could heat treat the place, which was another week.
Luckily they gave me my deposit back, and I got the fuck out of there. They could not understand why I wanted to move. Their reasoning was that since the problem was taken care of, I should just give them another chance, but that is not how bedbugs operate. They are hard to kill, and the psychological aspect of dealing with bedbugs is way worse than the physical aspect, and the physical part is torture too. I had over a hundred bites, that would not go away. It took three weeks and loads of Benadryl for things to calm down.
I was calm and polite, and gave the managers a chance to rectify the problem, and they did. I think at the end, we were both happy to get away from each other.
So the moral of my story, is DO NOT DUMPSTER DIVE !!!! I won't even buy furniture at Goodwill.
I will buy clothing at Goodwill, but I will wash it and dry it in high heat to kill any possible bugs. But furniture is such a gamble. Televisions can harbor roaches, and beds and dressers are a hiding p
After that experience, I got rid of over half of my belongings and vowed to become a minimalist. I now hate clutter, and don't really buy things unless I need them. I enjoy not owning a lot of things.
Anyway, I think that is all for now. I guess all of the talk of dumpster diving lately has made me go a little crazy and I had to share.
Ciaosies !
8 comments:
I have never dumpster dove (past tense ?), but I collected many a bottle in my time. Allowance was just something other kids got. I got lunch money and that was it. Every afternoon after school I would go to construction sites and collect bottles for the 2 cent deposit.
As for bed bugs or any other crawly, itchy things, I am fortunate to have never had them.
Jimmy
PS - Missed you mucho this weekend and I'm looking forward to my sandwich......
... I understand about the bedbugs... and I have been tempted but have not chosen to pick through le garbage for things...
I have never tried that. Bedbugs aren't nice, good you recovered from that.
Okay now I'm itching all over. We call dumpsters, skips and I've never had a desire to rummage through one. I don't even like reading a used book incase someone took it into the loo with them to read.
Somebody trash can be other's man fortune!
They didn't understand why you didn't want to move? FUCKING seriously? I'm itching all over just reading about this!
When I was 4 my great aunt and I took walks around the neighborhood and she'd always come home with a stuffed animal or an old lamp she'd find on someone's front yard junk pile. I loved these outings because I never knew what she was going to grab and people put out some pretty good stuff. Luckily, no bugs followed us home!
No dumpster diving for me. But that reminds me of a show called extreme cheapskates, that had some of the worst cheapskates possible. Many were dumpster divers. Many had furnished their entire homes from stuff they found in the dumpster. Some of them were really gross. One lady in NY had a regular job,but refused to actually spend money on food. She got all her food out of dumpsters and she wondered why her friends didn't ever want to eat at her place. ick...
I'm too afraid of bedbugs to do any dumpster diving.
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