The Aerie
I'm not a master dumpster-diver. My wife has books by this woman (whose name is pronounced "Decision" but spells it Dycycyzyn or something) who has made a dual career of first, providing for her family exclusively through dumpster-diving, and second writing several books about it.
As the woman apparently resides in a small town in Maine or New Hampshire or someplace equally primitive (the locals carry stone-tipped spears and wear skins) I imagine she has a very limited set of dumpsters to access, and her antics are quite well known around town. Like as not, generous locals deliberately place household items and canned food in dumpsters along her path, out of sympathy for her poor children.
Anyway, while I'm not as bad as all THAT, I'm also too pragmatic to completely shun dumpster diving altogether. I don't go heels-up in rotting food, but neither do I ignore the obvious gems in the dross.
Chairs are a pretty common find. One man's throne is another man's toilet, and vice versa. For years I used a nice high-backed office chair that was in the dumpster with a bent piston. It didn't go up-and-down so good, otherwise it was fine, and at $100 it was better than any chair I could buy for myself at the time. Recently I rescued a pair of rolling office chairs, and while they were a bit dusty with gypsum but the kids like them.
So I'm cheap, but at least I'm not stupid. I was walking to my car today and had to pass this dumpster near an apartment building. Next to the dumpster was another chair, so I gave it a look but it was 'way rickety. As I turned to go I happened to glance in the dumpster, and caught a glimpse of something blue and plastic that looked like a large toy. Circling the dumpster I looked down and there was a vacuum cleaner.
I hauled it out and looked it over. Brand new, not a mark on it. Attachments still snug in their brackets. Shrugging I figured this was worth at least checking it out, and I hauled it home.
It roared acceptably loud when I started it up, but it lacked suction. My son helped me disassemble it and we determined that the suction pump works fine, but that the air filter was clogged.
I downloaded the manual (man, the Internet is useful) and we learned that the filter is washable. So the filter is washed and upstairs, drying. Tomorrow we'll try it out. If it doesn't work, new filters are all of $15.
Our old vacuum was a wedding present from my wife's grandmother, meaning that it's over 15 years old. Works, but it's a pain: it spins the front agitator with a rubber belt over a vertical spindle off the motor. The spindle builds up so much hair that the belt slips off, the hair is as thick as a rope, and it can only be removed by sawing through it like a knife. It's like dissecting a dead rat. No thanks.
So we'll see if the new vacuum works tomorrow - but what a sweet deal if it does. A $100 vacuum, free, because somebody apparently didn't think to clean the air filter.
Posted by Albatross at October 26, 2004 11:08 PMThere were a couple of articles in our newspaper about 6 months ago by a syndicated columnist who goes by the moniker: The Handyperson. He wrote them in frustration over people who throw out vacuums. He noted that he had probably pulled out some 20-30 of them over the years and repaired them all. The ages of them dated from the 1940s through the present. In virtually every case, they just needed some cleaning, maybe a belt, a bag, or a new beater bar. He had 6 in his house and has given the rest away over the years. His frustration lies in his justifiable position that we're too much of a throw away society when these simple machines were designed to be repaired.
On the other paw, that makes things a lot less expensive for the rest of us. Score, Albatross!
Posted by: B.D. at October 27, 2004 6:24 AMWell, does it work? Don't leave us hanging!
Well, actually I didn't know the answer until yesterday... the answer being, YES!
It seems like the vacuum was used to suck up something very fine, and also very smelly - in particular, it seems to have been used to vacuum up scented talcum powder.
I had to wash the paper filter twice, and then I had to wait for the filter to get REALLY dry - any moisture at all seems to stop the filter completely.
In the meantime I had already ordered a set of replacement filters and a set of replacement parts for the vacuum - total outlay $30 - because I thought the filter was totally clogged with the talcum. Once it had dried thoroughly the vacuum worked.
However, I'm dubious as to how WELL it works. We'll see. The beater rotor seems to be air-driven, which I don't find very compelling since almost anything can stop it from spinning. And the while the draw directly from the vacuum pump is extremely powerful, it seems much dissipated by the time it reaches the main intake.
I'll be interested to see if the new filter makes it draw better - there must might be too much talc built up in the paper filter.
Posted by: Albatross at November 2, 2004 4:14 PM