• Furbag@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The only people who I’ve ever been happy to give stuff to are the ones who seem to be looking for free stuff, so now we just give stuff away.

    I’ve had similar experiences. You ask for a price and then you get hagglers and lowballers tickling you with messages all day, asking a million questions, and then they vanish or ask for some totally unreasonable price when you were just hoping to offload something quickly for a lot less than what it would be worth brand new.

    I once bought a bike from Target for about $100. It was a piece of shit, but at least it functioned. I rode it basically into the ground (broke the pedal right off off it) and I doubt I was going to be able to sell it for much considering the thing was $100 new, so I just offered it for free on Craigslist, mentioned it was not in good condition, and that I would hold it for whoever wanted it as long as they were on their way to get it. A lady responded within about 2 minutes, said she was one town over and driving to my place, and when she got there she offered to trade me a bottle of wine for it since she felt bad for just taking it for free (I didn’t ask for anything, but I accepted the trade). Genuinely the least stressful and most rewarding thing I’ve ever given away.

    • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      The best one I’ve ever given away was a couch listed as free to anyone who could get it out of the building. It was a third floor walkup, and the couch had like 3/4" clearance down the hallway.

      This couple showed up ready to help and very excited about the couch. It was like 30C that day, we took the legs and removable parts off, and got to work the four of us, but it still took us an hour to get the thing down the stairs because it had to be lifted above the railing and carefully rotated each flight.

      We were all sweaty so we shared some beer with them after they got it on their truck, and they were just super excited to be getting this good condition and very nice couch. They were some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

    • teejay@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I had a similar experience. I was giving away a wooden table top organizer free on CL. Some guy said he wanted it, so I put it outside by our front door and said he could just grab it once he got here. When he arrived, he took it, then hung a bag of goodies on our front door knob, shouted “thank you!” and left. When we checked it out, it was full of hand-made organic soaps, bracelets, and other random trinkets. He even wrote us a note and said thanks, he makes these things and sells them at farmers markets, and to have a good day. It was such an unexpected and cool thing to do, and so much more pleasant than trying to go through the gauntlet of selling that organizer for $20.