I’ve known people who’ve practically furnished their whole apartments with curbside finds. One of the best was the gorgeous sleigh bed a friend found a few years ago. One of the worst was a couch covered in cat hair (and god know what else), which, thankfully, only made a brief appearance in another friend’s apartment.
When asked about particularly unusual things the city has hauled away over the years, Troy Moon, the city’s solid waste manager, is quick to reply: “One year there was a gentleman who pushed his whole garage to the curb. But it was a small (garage).”
Still, even a small garage sitting at the curb is something you’re not likely to forget. But there won’t be any garages this year. Or, if there are, they won’t be picked up by the city.
This year (which is the last year the city will pick up oversized trash due to budget cuts) the list of acceptable bulky waste items has shrunk considerably. No longer can you leave construction debris or appliances at the curb. You also can’t toss out TVs, glass, clothing, tires or hazardous waste.
So what can you pile high in front of your abode? The city gives a green light to: hot water heaters, bathroom fixtures, dressers, bookcases, shelves, rolled carpets, large toys, stuffed chairs, sofas, box springs and mattresses.
Oh, but beware those mattresses. Should you haul one home (like one hapless Craigslist poster did recently), you may gain some unwelcome roommates.
“If you’re picking up a mattress or other pieces of furniture, you need to be conscious that they may have bed bugs,” says Doug Gardner, Portland’s director of health and human services. “There’s no way to tell with 100% accuracy.”
That is until you install your lovely find in your home and begin to wonder why you’re suddenly covered in little red bumps.
Bugs with your free bed?
I have some other friends who moved into a gorgeous new apartment — spacious rooms, fresh paint, great views. It seemed like their dream home. Until they started getting angry welts on their arms and legs.
Turns out the previous tenant had hauled in a piece of furniture off the street. And as my friends and their apartment were being fumigated with nasty bed bug killing chemicals, they silently (well, maybe not so silently) cursed this former renter’s trash picking ways.
They’re not alone in their plight. Portland has seen a rise in bed bug infestations in recent years, as have cities around the country.
“In the last three or four years, it’s definitely been on the increase,” says Jeanie Bourke, the city’s inspections director. “When I started in 1999, we didn’t have any.”
If apartment renters find themselves assaulted by bed bugs and can’t get their landlord to respond, Bourke’s office fields the complaints. Her team of inspectors then makes sure the landlord hires a pesticide company to spray the place down and that the residents follow a tightly regimented routine requiring the washing of everything and the sealing of clothes and mattresses in plastic. The worst thing is you’re just as likely to pick up bed bugs from a five star hotel as you are from some roach covered crack house.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the cleanliness of the environment,” Gardner says. “Fortunately, they’re not known to carry diseases. They’re a nuisance.”
Because these creepy critters spread easily and are tough to eradicate, the city gave out Tyvek suits this year to the guys in charge of hauling away our oversized junk. The suits should prevent any lurking bed bugs from hitching a ride home in the folds of their clothes. Unfortunately it’s not just mattresses and upholstered furniture where the bugs can lurk.
“They can live in wood furniture,” Bourke says. “They bore themselves into the grains of the wood.”
When it comes to the city’s official stance on residents treating the bulky waste pick-up as a giant yard sale, its hard to find a concrete answer. Bourke says trash picking is prohibited by city ordinances (I guess no one’s told this to the bottle collectors). But Moon, the solid waste manager, says this glorified garbage picking “is not something the city really encourages. But if people are not being disruptive of property or creating a mess ... it’s kind of OK.”