Dumpster Diving

There is an 1880s Cottage exactly one block away from my house that was bought by the son of some friends of mine over a year ago. Up until a few weeks ago, he has done almost nothing to the place, but that’s fine with me. At least it wasn’t bought by a developer who would bull doze it and build apartments. That is the big fear of all the home owners when ever a property goes up for sale around here. A few weeks back I started to see some activity at the place.

It wasn’t much activity. It looks like they removed some sheet rock and old vinyl flooring. My friends, the parents of the new owner, are really into old houses and have a pretty spectacular one themselves. The woman is on the Historic Preservation Committee, so it’s not like I expected the son to be ripping out any historic details or putting in all new vinyl windows or anything.

Today, though, as I drove by there was another truck and tailor out front filled with debris. There has been a guy there for the past week doing some foundation work on the place. Sticking out of the top of the pile of debris was an old pull out wooden bin from the kitchen. It looks like one of those you would store some sort of dry goods in.

I parked my truck at home and walked back down the street. The workman was under the house and we had a brief, and sort of surreal conversation through one of the foundation vents. All I could see were a pair of muddy knees at the base of the skirting and then I could barley make out a mouth and a pair of eyes through the vent. I asked if I could have the bin and he said sure. So I pulled it out of the trailer and hauled it home.



I’m think maybe I could incorporate it in to the yet to be built bathroom cabinet and use it as a laundry hamper. We’ll see.