My first freecycle...

PoshPaws_3

Personally, I love Freecycle. :T

I do agree that if somebody sent a representative to collect something from you, you would expect an email to say thankyou once they'd received the item. However, if someone has collected in person and said thankyou at the time, then that would be good enough for me - although I have been known to email afterwards and say how pleased I am with a thing, particularly if I feel that the former owner had some kind of emotional attachment to it. For instance, I've just received a large collection of blue and white china which was collected over time by the previous owner's mother. I gather from reading between the lines, that the lady is no longer with us and they felt it was a shame to separate a collection in which she obviously had some pride or from which she derived some pleasure. So, I felt it would be nice for her to know that the spirit in which it was first put together, is being continued.

I've freecycled three bags of cement which had been being moved from pillar to post around this house - ultimately winding up in my son's built-in wall cupboard! I've also freecycled two Victorian horse saddles which were damaged and unuseable but that have gone to a fellow who is involved in an open-air museum and who restores leatherwork. I couldn't have asked for a better home for them.

We've received some amazing stuff, aside from the china, such as a virtually brand-new boy's mountain bike, a somewhat older but still spankingly good adult's mountain bike for hubby, an in-chair massager, a rocking horse, some walking boots, a coffee-maker and a brand new 3-stage filter vacuum cleaner (which has changed my life, lol).

So often, for various reasons, I've had to take stuff to the dump that would have been perfectly capable of being used. I've hung onto stuff in the belief that, one day, I'd find somebody who could use it - and now with Freecycle, I've got the perfect vehicle for my recycling attempts! I love it! :T

Floss

I've got rid of a few things, but I think the nicest "thank-you" i got was from a mum & 2 young daughters - I freecycled an old guitar, which my son had cleaned & restrung, and the girls gave me 2 home-made thank-you cards and mum gave us a box of Quality Street!

Rave

I've given away probably 8-10 things now and all but one person has been very nice. The other guy wasn't so grateful but even he wasn't exactly impolite, just a bit standoffish. He was doing me a favour collecting the thing though so hardly worth worrying about.