When we wrote about needing to get rid of some dead appliances and about the recycling center in Rincon, our friends had commented that we could simply leave the appliances out on the street and someone would pick them up. We figured since we lived on a calle sin salida (cul-de-sac) that the chances of someone randomly driving by to pick up our old fridge and washer were slim. They might sit out for weeks we thought.
Well, as I left for the post office today I saw my neighbor had left a fridge out and low and behold, there was a scrapper already picking it up. Their stuff sat for less than a day.
I stopped and asked him if he wanted some more stuff. He dropped what he was working on and we came down the street to our property. There was still an old fridge in the kitchen, which is up a flight of stairs. I looked at him and said, “I don’t know how they got it up here”. He replied, “But you will know how it got down!” and we chucked it off the balcony and it landed with a thud.
The scrapper had his wife and daughter with him so Cassie brought out some guineos (bananas) and ice water for them while the man tore apart the appliances. In addition to the big fridge from the kitchen of the wood house, there was also an old fridge that had been used as a flower planter and a small stove with a rat’s nest inside.
He was nice and very hard working. I talked to him a little and he said he does just about anything he can to earn money, and scrapping was one of those things. He was fast and efficient. I don’t know how much money in scrap 2 fridges and a mini gas stove are worth, but I can’t imagine much so it is a numbers game. The more you can pick up in a day, the more you would earn.
Can we fit another one on top?
I keep saying that if you want something, you have to make it happen, and this is again further proof of that. If you want to earn money, you find a way. If you want to get rid of your appliances, you find a way. This business seems rather symbiotic as well. I had some appliances that were trash to me. He finds them, and recycles the metal. Benefit to me, and him.
Yep!
So we got rid of 2 more defunct refrigerators and an old stove that was again, being used as a rat motel. It turned out to be a productive morning in a whirlwind of tossing and tearing apart fridges with an occasional rat carcass here and there.
We hope that getting rid of the rat motels will also help to get rid of the rats!
Britton
You just pissed them off and got rid of there home guess where there moving in. Get rat poison guaranteed they will be in your house if you don’t kill them you will hear them at night digging at the bottom of your door and they can chew a hole right through a wire mesh screen. Unless you think kitty can handle them? I don’t know how you feel about having a dog around but the smaller mutts are good at keeping them away from your house we had three of them around our finca .
Good Luck and it’s always an adventure in PR
Britton, coming from CO aren’t you appalled by this? This is just wrong. Freon needs to be recycled and not vented to the atmosphere. In Washington we had to pay to have refrigerators/AC disposed of because they had to remove the Freon. When we took our refrigerator to the dump in San German we expected to pay for this but no. They just came up to the pickup truck and push it off the end. It was so upsetting. http://www.epa.gov/ozone/title6/608/disposal/household.html
We are watching a show on netflix called Infested. You need to watch the ones with rats…you have a huge battle on your hands if your guests are anything like these. YIKES… they had to lay down traps constantly…at least you have mowed around the house, that should help you in your battle. Good luck.
Rick, I have been poisoning them since we got here. Not sure how many of the little buggers there are, but I’ve been finding them dead in strange places here and there. If it does get bad, or they start invading our current living space, I’ll definitely step up my game. So far, the poison is doing it’s job.
Jeff, you raise a good point. There simply isn’t any incentive for him to keep the compressors with gas intact. There is also no accountability for the manufacturers to care, once it’s sold, it’s not their problem. A simple solution would be to charge a refrigerant core with each fridge sold. This would be returned to whomever brings it in for scrap. Then there is an incentive to dispose of it properly.
I watched the guy cut these particular appliances up and there was no gas escaping from them. One was being used as a planter and the other was half disintegrated. The one we took to the recycling center was the only one that may have had any refrigerant left. What they did with it, I don’t know.
Torrie, we will have to check out that show. Rats are fairly common down here, just as mice are in CO so it’s something we will get used to taking care of.
If you are poisoning the rats you can expect to find dead cats including your own. The rats bleed out over a week or so , get slow and the thrown out starving cats in your neighborhood will eat them. Kittie may too. PLEASE use traps only or you will worsen an already bad animal situation.
we use poison in our garage, they eat through our air conditioning hose in our car otherwise. We also hang socks filled with moth balls. I’m sure we will find at least 4 or 5 dead rats in the garage when we get down there,
Yikes…so glad we have no issues with rats…maybe because we have no neighbors around…pretty sure there is millions in the valley but I am not going down there.