Selling Your Garbage and Cleaning your House

Your trash can be another's treasure; this is the idea behind Craigslist.com and Kijiji.com. I knew this to be true for your lightly used items, but I recently learned that this may be possible for items that you might otherwise have been planning on throwing out.

A few months ago my stove died. Thanks to the extended warranty that the previous owner of my house had bought, I was eligible for a brand new stove for free. Apparently the stove had broken with this exact same problem twice before. Once my new stove arrived, the delivery company instructed me that I would need to contact Whirlpool to have the old one removed. I figured that rather than send it to the dump, I might be able to sell it. It was listed on Craigslist the next day. I fully disclosed the problems and the approximate cost of repair. To my surprise I received numerous requests to come see it. Within a week I had sold it for $180. Not too bad for a broken stove.

I told this story to my manager who decided to try craigslist out for himself. He was finishing his basement and had ripped out the carpet. The company installing his new floors had offered to dispose of his old carpet for $200. Instead he listed it on craigslist. In less than 48hrs he had sold the carpet for $75 saving him $275. Pretty good for some old carpet. He later went on to sell some leftover bricks he had from an interlocking project that were taking up room in his garage.

What have you been able to sell that would otherwise be in the dump?