I’ve been vaguely aware of Freecycle but never used it before. I took up our Parquet floor for reasons that will be explained in another post. It came up easily and most of it undamaged. The floor underneath formed of wooden floor boards was in good, although not perfect condition. It required a professional varnish and polish but other than that for something that was laid in 1971 is in remarkably good condition. As for the Parquet although its not to my taste it was in good nick so the last thing I wanted was it to go to landfill. At that point there were a number of alternatives. A charity shop along the road that takes anything – but that meant getting about 10 bags there, Gumtree or Freecycle. I decided to try Freecycle.
Freecycle was ludicrously easy to sign up to. It literally took one minute. You don’t even get an email link to click on to activate your account (which nowadays is is almost unheard of). After you do that you say which town/city/area you’re in. That gives you a local dashboard. How much information you gave about your location and how you protect your privacy is up to you. When I posted I just put my general area in.
Posting an offer is easy too (of course you can also post ‘wanted’ too). (There is a check of what you are posting but this is so quick it must be automated.) Within an hour I had four people interested and later that afternoon someone turned up with a van and took it it away.
I now get regular emails with offers and its amazing what junk people will offer and presumably take. Its a good way of reducing and recycling your needs.
Overall verdict: Very good – but only post with offers when you’ve got time to deal with the potential takers. If you want something you have to be quick off the mark – competition is clearly fierce.
