People are strange

Well, yes, I'm sure we all knew that already, but in recent days I have seen evidence that is truly mind-boggling.

Where my parents live in Sydney, the local council has regular kerbside clean up days, where people can put all their larger rubbish, that doesn't fit into the regular rubbish collection, out on the nature strip for collection.

Most people start putting their junk out a week or so before the appointed date, and once the piles of junk start appearing, the scavengers come out from the woodwork. The neighbours across the road from my parents have been doing some renovating, so their collection of junk included various building materials, including a vanity unit from one of their bathrooms. Needless to say, the vanity disappeared very early in the piece.

The nextdoor neighbours put out a small picnic chair, with an aluminium tube frame, and yesterday a man in a big van pulled up, produced a trusty hacksaw, and cut up the frame, took the al tubing, and left the seat and back panels (which had also disappeared by this morning).

Now my parents and I had also put some stuff out on the kerb, but so far it had not been touched. We had seen people doing slow drive-bys in cars and vans, checking out what was on the lawns, and a couple of people had actually come over to look at our pile, but nothing had been taken. I wasn't quite sure whether to be relieved, or offended that our rubbish wasn't as good or worthy of scavenging as that of our neighbours.

However, today, the family ego was assuaged, as a man in a silver sedan car, came and had a good look at our pile, and ended up carting off an old mirror (which had been a bathroom cupboard door at one stage), and a large green felt pin board which many years ago had hung in my bedroom.

But as I said, people are strange... both those who scavenge amid the piles of discarded waste, and those who get some sort of satisfaction from the knowledge that their rubbish is worthy of salvage.