Is it common practice to "steal" from a skip?!

[xerxes]

It is illegal unless you have the permission of the person to whom the stuff in the skip belongs.

It distresses me to see useful stuff thrown away. I once knocked on someone's door to ask about some bricks I'd spotted which looked quite good. They were new bricks, being stored in the skip awaiting the bricklayer building an extension. Oops (but I was glad I had asked first.)

My most recent acquisition from a skip (with permission) was a quantity of 30mm stainless steel tubing, new and undamaged.

Putting rubbish into a skip you haven't paid for is no different from fly tipping, and it adds to someone else's costs for rubbish disposal: despicable.

 

[mattylad]

I also have some wooden 20'x4"x3" joists in the back yard from a skip.
Heaven knows what I'll use em for but I just couln't see the wood wasted like that.

 

[dextrous]

I also have some wooden 20'x4"x3" joists in the back yard from a skip.
Heaven knows what I'll use em for but I just couln't see the wood wasted like that.

You could use them to protect your drive from being damaged by a skip

 

[mattylad]

I dont have a drive

 

[gregers]

at work we had just smashed up a cast iron bath and we loaded our skip with it,about 1/2hr later a chap appeared and asked if he could have it and went and loaded his van up with all the bits,and thats all he done went round grabing any metal he could and when he had a few tonnes worth he weighed it in.

 

[ColJack]

since being made redundant, I've noticed that my street has a tat man come doen it 2-3times a week.. different ones though.. they must have worked out a shedule because they never come on the same day..

so anything remotely metal must be bolted down if you want to keep it..

I dropped 2 lengths of conduit on my drive while I had my hands full once, and forgot to go pick it up after unloading the stuff into the shed, I spent about 20 mins putting it away and having a bit of a re-organise..
by the time I went back out front for it, it was gone...

 

[toptec]

From the law of Theft.

The two key points relating to theft and these circumstances are 'Dishonesty' and if the property taken ' belongs to another'.

At what point in your actions and dumping the stuff in a skip do you relinquish the right of ownership. I would say if it is your skip, the right of ownership stops when the skip is collected by the skip company. If the skip is hired by someone else then the moment you place your stuff in it the property becomes unowned.

Dishonesty has too be proved, some might say that they assume that the owner of the property would agree to it being taken. A jury would have to decide whether at the point of taking the person acted dishonestly.

I recall a case years ago where an old oven was taken from the pavement, by Gypsy's, where it was awaiting collection by the council. A complaint was made by the ovens owner and the Police traced and charged the culprit.

At Court the owner admitted that if it had been taken by his neighbour he would not have made a complaint............. Case Dismissed.

Complicated this law stuff Innit.

 

[CortinaV8]

I tend to leave things at the end of my drive near to the road, 9/10 some scunner does me a favour and removes it for me.

The only time I have had a problem with people going thru a skip was when we were clearing out my grans house after she died and half its contents ended up strewn across the street. If someone wanted to remove my junk from the skip and create more space for me, not a problem, however in reality we usually end up with everyone elses **** in it.

 

[kjacko]

Lol, oddly enough my printer repair man came round yesterday (to fix a printer) and i asked "you got rid of that skip yet, its been there ages?"
His reply?: "eventually yes, but every week or so, it was being emptied by ****** and the like, they take the metal parts out of the dead printers i throw away and weight them in. So i just kept refilling it with other rubbish from the premises."
He said it was emptied about 4 times in total and only cost him one skip's worth!

******..........love em...hate em.....love em....hate em....!

 

[mattylad]

ISTR that it is your property until you put it in the skip, then it becomes the property of the skip owner. It is never unowned property.