Freecycling

Friday, 11th July

Round our house, it’s not foxes who go through our rubbish, it’s the neighbours. In the dead of night, locals trawl through the contents of our skip and bin bags to look for broken sinks, tap sets, Barbie missing one leg, almost anything. Pikeys go through the skip first, looking for scrap metal, which they can resell. From our bedroom window, we can see them drawing back the cover to reveal the miraculous contents of the big metal treasure chest. Sometimes we make bets on how quickly stuff will go. To save them the trouble of burrowing under the tarpaulin, Troy has taken to leaving the metal parts propped up on the outside of the skip. This is in case they hurt themselves stealing useless detritus, and try to sue us. There’s an expression up North, ‘Where’s there’s muck there’s brass’, and there seems to be a market in virtually anything. After all, look at the rubbish people will buy on eBay. However, I suspect one of our raiders was a bit disappointed with the contents of one designer shopping bag. We use them to put scooped poop in.

We have been trying to find space for the wedding presents, getting rid of huge piles of clutter, and almost invariably it soon finds a new home. A sort of freeBay, extreme urban recycling. Today, within five minutes, a large box of old electronic bits, was taken. Recently, the kids put out loads of old broken toys, books, broken luggage and board games with missing pieces. At 6.30, in the morning, a battered old white van appeared, and a battered old white man clambered out, and took the lot. Occasionally people will ring the doorbell and ask if they could take specific items, these tend to be the more middle class freecyclers. One afternoon the doorbell went and an elderly gentleman stood on the doorstep clutching a two foot tall, Art Deco, bronze nude male. ‘Can I really take this?’ he enquired. ‘I have a gay roofer friend who would love him.’ I reassured him that Stanley needed a new home. Now, Stanley has history. In France, due to the convoluted inheritance and property laws, homes often lie empty for years before they are sold. New owners find themselves lumbered with the entire dusty contents. Some friends bought such a house, and we went to stay last summer. Xanthe fell in love with the statue, christened him Stanley, and somehow managed to get him through airport security. But girls are fickle, and this summer she has moved on, and Stanley became redundant.

We are currently showcasing a broken glider, a broken abdominizer, a hamster cage and an inflatable pink chair. No takers yet, but the only thing that never got a new home was one of those dog head collars, designed to stop them scratching. I guess all the local dogs are in pretty good condition. Even broken electricals go. Perry’s computer conked out shortly before Christmas, so I put it out on the way to collect the kids from school. It was dark when we got back, and I parked the car by Battersea Square, so that we could all meet Troy for a drink. As we pulled up, a shifty looking guy was sneaking up the road. He had a huge grin on his face and a knackered PC under his arm. We had to stifle the giggles as he went past the car. Dirty Harry joined us for an early evening snifter. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I just seem a really smug looking bloke crossing the Square with a PC, do you think he nicked it?’ This time we fell about.

We went for Sunday roast in the pub last week. There, on the sofa with a bunch of guys, sat Stanley. I went over to meet his new owner, ‘Are you a roofer?’ I asked. He was quite taken aback. I drew the line at asking the other question.