Monday, August 17, 2009

Dumpster Dive Find !!!

O.k. this you have to read !!!

This morning ..My Mom and I set out on our morning walk. About 8 doors down from our house there is an empty house that is in foreclosure and they have been doing what is called a "Clean Out" ...meaning that all the junk that the tenant left behind is cleared out into a large dumpster to prepare the house for sale. Living in SO. CA. this is rather common place ..on our street alone there are approx 10 homes set for forclosure and I'm sure more to come .

Anyhow ..the saying "One Mans Trash is another mans treasure" is commonly used around this house ..and their trash became our treasure this morning ...Look what we found...


This is one of those Hoover Steam Cleaners for your carpet, rugs and even tile. Yep tossed into the dumpster.

Now ..if your one of those that's worried about "coodies" ..will you probably wouldn't have touched this baby with a 10ft. pole. It wasn't beat up but just absolutely filthy ! They obviously had bought it to clean up after their pet ..but they opted out on cleaning the machine afterward and well it was loaded with pet hair. What do people think that the machine is going to clean itself ?

Having owned pets all my life and growing up in a farmy atmosphere ..Pet hair doesn't offend me ...a good scrub and you can get your pet looking and smelling beautiful just like us.

Anyhow ..of course first thought was ..does it work ?? The only option was to go home get the truck and take it back and plug it in to see what happened ...Kablooeee ...No not really !

We got it back and sure enough the motor ran and the suction was good but the scrubbers wouldn't turn round like they were supposed too. They were so caked in pet hair ..we figured that was the issue and set to cleaning all the debris away. Well No luck still the scrubbers wouldn't turn !!

Well at this house ..we don't quit and we don't give up until we know without a shadow of a doubt we are licked ..and we weren't to that point yet.

The internet is just an amazing thing (if used for good) and we have found that there is always someone out there that has probably had the same problem as you and can tell you how to fix it or if it's unfixable ( gee is that a word unfixable LOL .)

So I googled ..the name of the machine and how to fix the scrubbers and wouldn't you know ..there was an article on how to get to the motor that turns the scrubbers and how to lubricate the gears and bearings ....so of course we set out with our tools taking the base apart peeling back the layers to get that motor ..

We realized we needed some special grease lubricant and with Lowes just a mile away we sent the man for the grease ..which was only $5 ..

while he was gone we realized that one of the water reservoirs had been broke ....so we called hoover to find out the price of it ..and they said they would send it to us for FREE !! Wow again .Hey don't look a gift horse in the mouth !

So now all we needed was that lubricant and to get it all put back together and see if we had ourselves a working scrubber .

Well it worked ...the man that wrote the article on how to fix it was all we needed and his directions were perfect and easy to understand. After putting everything back together...the scrubbers turned beautifully ..now all we have to do is wait on the tank ..

I knew when I saw this machine in the trash it was worth well over $100-...however this one costs a bit more ..Everywhere I looked it up it runs $265-.

So basically we found $265.00 in the trash today ...not a bad day for heading out on a walk !

So besides sharing with you our Dumpster Dive Find today ..there's a moral to this story ... 1. if you keep things cleaned up they will probably stay working ..and 2. ..is that just because something doesn't work ..doesn't mean there's not a fix if you just research it and are willing to put a little elbow grease into fixing it up. Whoever owned this to me didn't have alot of respect for money ..to spend that kind of money ..treat it the way they did and then toss it away! When you trade each day of your life working for Money to survive and buy things and then you disrespect so grately the things you have bought with it ..that's rather sad to me ..it's really disrespecting yourself and the blessings that God has given us!

So have any of you ever had any awesome dumpter dive finds ??? Leave a comment and share what you found..I know I would love to hear about it and I'm sure other's would too !

7 comments:

  1. super!!!!! wow, i would have dove in.

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  2. you go girlfriend..we have a carpet cleaner and it works beautifully..of course we clean ours when we are done..:)

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  3. Gooooooooooo girls!!
    What a beeeeautiful machine!
    I woulda jumped in for that too!
    Bet you looked cute pushing it home. lololol

    My best score was an old couch someone threw out. We were broke, and needed a couch really bad. Brough that thing home, and took the ugly cushions off and myguy turned it into a "bench" type couch and we put a ton of pillows on it. When we moved to this house, we brought it with us and the back board from it is now built into our mantle and a heart with M + L is whittled into the back of it! God's good!
    I'm happy for your new cleaning machine!!!!

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  4. WOW...lucky you! I could use a carpet cleaning machine right now. LOL
    We saw a show on TV that these people who clean out these foreclosed homes HAVE to throw everything out no matter if it is brand new or used. They were throwing out amazing stuff! They are hired to get so many houses done in so many hours and so out goes everything. It amazes me what some people leave behind and it is also very sad.
    Enjoy your cleaner!!!!!
    Blessings~

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  5. A lot of my furniture finds are from the front of people's houses. In Connecticut they have "big trash pickups" a couple of time seach summer. You can put out large items of furniture and the town will come and pick it up for you. A lot of my furniture has been acquired this way. A little paint and some fixing up and it is so pretty.

    Good for you!! You made a great find.

    ♥ Rebecca

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  6. Oil is the lifeblood of any machine, that and keeping it clean. Congrats on your great find!

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  7. You crack me up Dumpster Dive :)I can just see it!

    It looks brand new.

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Many Happy Returns of the Day ..Sara of Sweet Magnolia's Farm