Found on premises

Know of a hot freebie or deal? Please, share the details. No referral or affiliate links allowed.
Forum rules
No affiliate links, referral links or advertisements allowed.
User avatar
MackerelCat
Posts: 7258
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:44 pm

Found on premises

Post by MackerelCat »

When my father-in-law was in the military, there was an official phrase he used for items people left behind: Found on premises, or FOP. Here's a freebie I got from a FOP this week:

There's a sign on the big kitchen fridge in the dorm I work in that food left longer than a week will be thrown out, container and all. It was cleaned out last March when the students left early during the COVID outbreak, but someone left five Rubbermaid Easy Find containers in the freezer. I had been watching them since July.

This week, I liberated them. Emptied out the frozen food, soaked them in a sink filled with hot water, lots of dish detergent and two cups of vinegar, then ran them through the dishwasher. They are good as new.
Mackie
User avatar
LWolfT
Posts: 2709
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:46 am

Re: Found on premises

Post by LWolfT »

Amazing what's left behind, isn't it?

Back when my "summer job" was in an office, one year my section was the last to wrap up. The manager had piled "left behind" items on a table, including a nice travel mug. I asked about it, she said I was welcome to it ... no one had asked, and she had to clean out the office.

So, I have a travel mug, which I've used while working remotely. I'm always afraid I'm going to dump coffee all over the keyboard.
User avatar
MackerelCat
Posts: 7258
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:44 pm

Re: Found on premises

Post by MackerelCat »

There was a lot of stuff left behind that I took to Goodwill when I first came to work here: a hanging closet storage system, a women's barbell and weight set, and I forget what all else. It filled up the back of my car. There were lots of dishes I washed and put in the dorm kitchen, along with a new in the box pizza kit that included a very nice wooden pizza paddle. I know they moved out in a hurry, but it's pretty amazing what they just disregarded.
Mackie
HappyDaze
Posts: 4186
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 11:11 am

Re: Found on premises

Post by HappyDaze »

Oh Mackie, I just LOVE FOPs! There were a gazillion of them when I bought my house - the sister and brother who inherited it from their uncle and sold it to me actually offered it to me for several thousand LESS if they could leave behind all their uncle's "stuff". The upstairs, the cellar, the garage - all were full!!

Many of the items I am using (random wooden chairs that I painted to match), pieces of fabric used for those "pocket things" men wear in their suits that I ironed and framed, a set of heavy glass dishware, a heavy metal key holder, an old Edison phonograph WITH several of the old wax records (the phonograph, I discovered, is worthless because some fool cut the legs off it but the records are worth $10 to $85 each, so I'm told, depending on their condition).

Many items were donated (tons of nice men's clothing), a small freezer. Some things I sold - an old lawn mower, some lumber, some tools, etc. some things, sadly, were tossed - old letters, etc. that had been damaged by squirrels. It was quite a haul to be sure.
"All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed. After all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog."

Charles M. Schultz
User avatar
MackerelCat
Posts: 7258
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:44 pm

Re: Found on premises

Post by MackerelCat »

There was a lot of stuff in our house too. It was owned by a doctor who worked up until the day she died. Her goddaughter inherited it, painted the interior and put in a new kitchen, but didn't look in a lot of the cupboards. We found Viking glassware, a set of hand-carved alabaster owl bookends, stacks of old medical journals, art journals, lots of medical books, medical office decor stuff, a Hall china Aladdinware tea pot, a Franciscan ware cream pitcher, metal book shelves, bags of hospital-sized sanitary pads, boxes of exam gloves, and I don't know what all else. Some of it we kept (the shelves, china and the owls), some we gave away (the journals and books), some went to Goodwill and we trashed the open boxes and bags of pads and gloves.
Mackie
User avatar
MackerelCat
Posts: 7258
Joined: Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:44 pm

Re: Found on premises

Post by MackerelCat »

Today I FOPed a shelf kit that had been cluttering up the office since before I came to work there. Two white wooden shelves with the tracks and hanging hardware. If DH does not have a use for it, I will take it to Goodwill.
Mackie
Post Reply