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My neighbour has an acoustic guitar in their garbage and I want it, what should I do?

Ask them if you can have it.

Yup... it is kinda dull in here now huh?

 Hordini wrote:
Ask them if you can have it.

Why would anyone throw away a guitar? I mean, unless it was completely trashed and useless, in which case why would anyone want to "salvage" it from the garbage?

If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

Exactly, if there's clear indication something is discarded there's no problem with picking it up.

Of course if they tossed it out there may be something wrong with it, but heck the price is right.

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

It's against the law in some countries to go through other people's garbage. In some others it depends on where it is, and whether or not you have to go onto private property to get to it.

In Canada, if it's in the trash it's fair game. I mean, it's a lifestyle for scrappers.

That said, you aren't allowed to take anything from a landfill. Which is kind of weird but if you get it before the pickup, you're all good.

That said, left by the house is not considered in the trash. Has to be at the curb within 1m of the road / sidewalk. At least, in Ontario.

(Part of my job is to do ride-alongs with the drivers of waste vehicles that purchase scale systems from the company I work for. It's not that weird that I know these things. It's a long ride and you've got to talk about something.)

At least in parts of the US, the garbage is still legally someone elses property. So taking it is technically illegal. That said, most people won't object to someone taking something they threw out.

Walk up and ask. OR wait until trash pick up and ask the trash ma... oh, gak, I almost did it... trash person if you can have it.

Steal everything except the guitar.

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

In the UK it is, legally. That's why people get charged for stealing food from skips behind supermarkets. Whether that is an idiosyncratic legal situation here, and whether the guitar's owner would care enough to press charges, though...

Asking the neighbour is certainly the most sensible option.

Nowhere that I have lived in the US wouldn't have been considered stealing to have taken something out of someone's garbage*. You're free to ask neighbors if you can have it, but I would not say that you're obligated to.

*Of course, if it's not on the curb on the sidewalk, it could potentially be trespassing.

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

In the UK it is, legally. That's why people get charged for stealing food from skips behind supermarkets. Whether that is an idiosyncratic legal situation here, and whether the guitar's owner would care enough to press charges, though...

Asking the neighbour is certainly the most sensible option.

I don't think it is tenable to charge someone for stealing an object that was clearly thrown away. It is at that point an ownerless object. If you stood your ground on that you should win in a fair trial, not that it should come to that for a piece of garbage. Where you could get in trouble might be in trespassing or in making a mess depending on the circumstances.

Just take it. If it is clearly been thrown away nobody is going to be bothering you for taking it.

 djones520 wrote:
Yup... it is kinda dull in here now huh?

Very much so...

 SolarCross wrote:

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

In the UK it is, legally. That's why people get charged for stealing food from skips behind supermarkets. Whether that is an idiosyncratic legal situation here, and whether the guitar's owner would care enough to press charges, though...

Asking the neighbour is certainly the most sensible option.

I don't think it is tenable to charge someone for stealing an object that was clearly thrown away. It is at that point an ownerless object. If you stood your ground on that you should win in a fair trial, not that it should come to that for a piece of garbage. Where you could get in trouble might be in trespassing or in making a mess depending on the circumstances.

Several people have been charged in the UK for stealing from supermarket skips. Tesco and Iceland, I think. Not sure about convictions.

It’s not stealing if it’s in the trash.

Thought it said ‘in his garage’. Which is a totally different ketlte of fish.

I say just chap their door, ask if you can have it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

In the UK it is, legally. That's why people get charged for stealing food from skips behind supermarkets. Whether that is an idiosyncratic legal situation here, and whether the guitar's owner would care enough to press charges, though...

Asking the neighbour is certainly the most sensible option.

I don't think it is tenable to charge someone for stealing an object that was clearly thrown away. It is at that point an ownerless object. If you stood your ground on that you should win in a fair trial, not that it should come to that for a piece of garbage. Where you could get in trouble might be in trespassing or in making a mess depending on the circumstances.

Several people have been charged in the UK for stealing from supermarket skips. Tesco and Iceland, I think. Not sure about convictions.

I believe that’s more to do with it still being on private land?

Once you’ve put your bins out, I think it’s all fair game?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Thought it said ‘in his garage’. Which is a totally different ketlte of fish.

I say just chap their door, ask if you can have it.

I thought the same about the gaRAge thing vs. gaRBAge thing. . . . STill doesn't really change my Rocket Racoon video, but yeah, I'd just knock and ask whats wrong with it/if you can take it off them

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Once you’ve put your bins out, I think it’s all fair game?

I'm not sure about it but it would make sense that, once you put your bins out for collection, what's in them becomes property of the local council/company that removes it; in much the same way you can't just pinch stuff from a tip because it's strictly stealing from the council/company that owns it, even though it'd been thrown away.

It could be argued that doesn't happen until it's inside the truck, but then I believe there is or has been some fuss over ownership of wheelie bins in the first place. Some people have been told they're householder property, others are council property, so you might even have an issue pulling that hastily-discarded cardboard sleeve of cooking instructions out of your council-owned blue bin once you've put it in there.

I'd ask, especially the garbage in question is still on his property, after all unless they're a real jerk they'll probably say yes anyway

(it could be a situation where one person in the house has dumped something another would be upset about so it could still be recovered by them)

now if it had been put out with a 'free to a good home' note or similar, I'd grab away double quick, I love free stuff

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:

nfe wrote:

 SolarCross wrote:
If it is in the garbage then it would not be stealing to take it. Just take it with a clear consience.

In the UK it is, legally. That's why people get charged for stealing food from skips behind supermarkets. Whether that is an idiosyncratic legal situation here, and whether the guitar's owner would care enough to press charges, though...

Asking the neighbour is certainly the most sensible option.

I don't think it is tenable to charge someone for stealing an object that was clearly thrown away. It is at that point an ownerless object. If you stood your ground on that you should win in a fair trial, not that it should come to that for a piece of garbage. Where you could get in trouble might be in trespassing or in making a mess depending on the circumstances.

Several people have been charged in the UK for stealing from supermarket skips. Tesco and Iceland, I think. Not sure about convictions.

No convictions. In the Iceland case the men were initially charged with "burglary" but the police realised that would never work so they dropped that in favour of some really obscure and ambigious paragraph from a 19th century vagrancy act, lol. Courts threw it out. I think the main reason that supermarkets would want to discourage dumpster diving as it is called in the US is the liability. You just know what would happen if one of these dumpster divers were to injure themselves jumping in and out of skips... they would blame the supermarkets and litigate them for millions in compensation cheerfully abetted by the courts because they get a cut. If you were a supermarket manager allowing dumpster diving just looks like a fast way to lose a million quid in compensation claims for no benefit at all... It remains however, and has been tested in a court of law, that discarded property is fair game which is just as it should be.

Yes, because I'm sure that homeless people so desperate to eat they're scavenging food out of bins have a team of crack personal injury lawyers on speed dial as part of a Cunning Plan to bilk money out of the poor ickle supermarkets

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yes, because I'm sure that homeless people so desperate to eat they're scavenging food out of bins have a team of crack personal injury lawyers on speed dial as part of a Cunning Plan to bilk money out of the poor ickle supermarkets

In the US we have what we call ambulance chasers. They will visit you in the hospital, and take the case for a chunk of the settlement, no money upfront.

'Murica

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yes, because I'm sure that homeless people so desperate to eat they're scavenging food out of bins have a team of crack personal injury lawyers on speed dial as part of a Cunning Plan to bilk money out of the poor ickle supermarkets

In the US we have what we call ambulance chasers. They will visit you in the hospital, and take the case for a chunk of the settlement, no money upfront.

'Murica

Yeah we have them in the UK too.

SO DID YOU TAKE THE GUITAR OR WHAT

My advice is to not take legal advice from strangers on the internet, most of whom don't have any experience of laws in your jurisdiction and are demonstrably wrong even about the laws in their own jurisdiction.

Spoilsport.