We live in a society where people buy and collect a lot of stuff. Letting go has almost become a cliché. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Founder and CEO Brian Scudamore says he’s always amazed by the odd junk people pay his company to pick up. Recently 1-800-GOT-JUNK? compiled a list of the strangest items, what they call “weird junk.” These items round out the Top 5:
5. Garage full of garden gnomes.
This collection was found after some tenants had moved out of a house in Minnesota. Evidently, their extended garden gnome family didn’t make the cut.
“My initial reaction was that her teenage kids must have stolen every garden gnome in town,” said Anthony Stamson, member of the stunned cleanup crew.
4. Boxes of brand new electronic accessories.
A product design office was closing in South Carolina, and they junked several truckloads full of brand new accessories for iPods, iPads, iPhones, as well as entire cappuccino machines, smart phones, HD projection TVs and more. The franchise was able to find new homes for most of the items through local charities.
3. A mortician’s closet.
This oddity emerged from a California storage unit that had been abandoned — a closet used for storing dead bodies, as seen in a morgue.
“Once I realized what it was used for, I felt creeped out but also puzzled. Why was it in an abandoned storage container?” says Flo Murray, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchise partner.
2. Taxidermy animals.
Finding mounted animals isn’t too strange. However, an albino stuffed cobra? That’s a little odd. A stuffed baboon? Pretty unusual. A two-headed kitten fetus in a for maldehyde jar? Now things can’t get much weirder than that — especially hidden in a room in a San Francisco retirement home.
1. Frozen human stem cells.
This is it, the winner of weird. The 1-800-GOT-JUNK? crew in Dallas was cleaning out the home of a family that was moving out of the country. The freezer was full of cuts of meat, which the homeowner told the truck team members they could share amongst them. Little did franchise partner Peggy Lamy realize when she froze the items that a green tea box amongst the bags contained human stem cells belonging to the family’s deceased father. The daughter phoned days later, emotional and panicked. “We made arrangements to meet them shortly after that to return the precious cells,” explains Lamy. “Strangely, the family did not turn up.” Whatever happened to the green tea box? Well it remains in the Lamy’s freezer as a great conversation piece.