“Now I know to specify”: Homeowners leave “free” items in front yard. It backfires
These homeowners are sharing a warning to others after they left several free items on their curb.
Why did leaving free items outside backfire?
In a post on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, poster Curt Irish (u/pudge2424 on Reddit) says his wife left several items on a table in their front lawn with a sign that read, "Free! Take what you want."
However, the sign wasn't specific enough. Instead of taking the items on the table, someone took the table.
"I guess I should have added 'Not the Table' to the sign," he wrote.
Irish told Newsweek that he was shocked when the couple returned home to see the table missing.
"I wasn't at any point angry, but was overcome immediately with laughter and maybe a bit of disbelief," he said. "At the end of the day, they did follow the letter of the sign, but [I] still can't imagine the thought process behind it."
I guess I should have added “Not the Table” to the sign.
byu/pudge2424 inmildlyinfuriating
Has this happened to other homeowners?
In the comments of the man's original post, other homeowners shared their "free item" horror stories.
"I had the opposite problem. Tried giving away a ironing board by leaving it out on the curb with a sign. Anything I put on top of it disappeared right quick but the board remained. Modified the sign to say including the board and it was gone almost instantly," one shared.
"I had free on a piece of furniture for a week. Changed the sign to $20 then it was stolen," another said.
"A similar thing happened to my roommate last summer. He picked up a table with a 'Free' sign on it, forgot to take the sign off when setting it down for a couple hours behind the garage. Someone else came and grabbed it," a third wrote.
"I put a desk out that had metal and particle board components. Someone, maybe a scrapper, took all the metal and left the particle board. That was fun to dispose of," a fourth commented.
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