The floating flea market

Scavenging furniture from San Francisco's streets can be a mixed bag. In the mid-'90s, while living north of the Panhandle, Leslie Dean successfully added to her furniture collection a '60s-era cushy olive chair with wooden arms that she found on the street. She also came across an ancient wooden dining room chair and painted it orange to match her orange bathroom.

She was less fortunate with a 9-foot-tall built-in cabinet from a Victorian house on Divisadero. "It looked like 'Sybil's' mother kept her torture instruments in it," she says of the white cabinet with black knobs. Over time, its imposing presence became unsettling.

"I would wake up in the middle of the night. It scared me so much because it looked like some old medical thing," she said.

Dean had better luck with abandoned chairs. Of the olive chair, she says: "I brought it to the house because it was vinyl and could be sterilized. I did that and then both of my roommates were like 'I saw that, I was going to get that.' 'Well, you didn't. My chair.' " Graciously, Dean placed her prize in the living room for all to enjoy. Now living on her own in Bernal Heights, Dean says nothing from that neighborhood's streets has struck her fancy yet. "I've pretty much scaled my life back to perfection." Leaving unwanted furniture on the street often works well for those who leave things out and those who pick things up, but there are a few disadvantages to the practice. Besides being illegal, it often creates trouble and expense for the city and blights neighborhoods when things aren't claimed immediately, or at all.

Clearly, not every item finds a new home. According to statistics provided by San Francisco's Department of Public Works, in 2004 the city received 16,083 calls to pick up dumped furniture. Last year's haul included 3,758 sofas, 6,811 mattresses, 1,163 tables and chairs, 653 beds and desks, 510 pieces of miscellaneous furniture and 69 televisions.

The total cost to the city is hard to determine because furniture is mixed in with other refuse destined for the dump.

The fine for illegal dumping is either $150 for obstructing the streets or $300 for violating the health code. Last year, the city handed out 334 citations for illegal dumping, of which only 10 were for furniture -- not surprising, since most furniture dumpers don't put their names and addresses on the items.

No one is quite sure exactly when the city's furniture market of the streets began. A good guess is that its origins date back to the days when Norcal Waste Systems (the owner of San Francisco's two waste-disposal companies, Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal) offered to pick up an entire block's bigger items, including furniture, one day a year. As word of the furniture bonanza that could be had at these events spread, entrepreneurial types began trolling the neighborhoods in pickups to snag the best items, leaving a mess in their wake. Some homeowners began putting out 10 to 12 items at a time. People from other parts of town even began hauling their junk to the designated neighborhood.

To stem the tide, in the late '90s Norcal switched to an appointment-based system for these pickups. Called "bulky item collection," it is available twice a year to anyone who gets a garbage bill in San Francisco; the cost is already figured into the garbage bill. Residents call Norcal, tell them what they want to have picked up, make an appointment and put the item out with a sign saying "B.I.C." attached the night before. Renters who don't receive garbage bills can arrange with their landlords for a bulky-item pickup.

If the idea of placing unwanted items in front of the house leaves you cold, online recycling may be the answer. Craigslist's free classified section is one option, and there's also an online community called Freecycle devoted solely to giving and acquiring worthy items. E-mail posts on freecycle.org, the organization's Web site, must be strictly for giving or requesting items, including furniture, for free. No money is supposed to change hands in any of the transactions, and monitors regulate the posts to make sure none request payment. In addition, it must be legal to possess the items being offered, and the items must be suitable for people of all ages to use.

Freecycle was founded in Tucson, Ariz., two years ago, and there are now 3,084 Freecycle communities operating in more than 50 countries. San Francisco's membership is now 3,374. Becoming a member allows you to post items and receive posts. "I am excited about Freecycle's unlimited potential to change people's thinking of continually acquiring things that ultimately don't satisfy to a new way, where we try to live simply and learn the joy of making another person happy simply by gifting items that we don't need," Cheryl Lynn, co-owner of SF Freecycle, wrote in an e-mail.

Regardless of efforts to organize the process of recycling unwanted items to new owners, the practice of depositing unwanted furniture on the sidewalk continues. All it takes for most city residents to see that the phenomenon is alive and well is a spin around town.
Arranging pickup

Freebie-itis is not a problem just for San Franciscans. Other Bay Area communities also have to deal with the issue of furniture left on the streets. Here's how a sampling of cities deals with the issue.

San Francisco residents can set up a bulky item collection by calling their garbage pickup service, either Sunset Scavenger at (415) 330-1300 or Golden Gate Disposal at (415) 626-4000. To find a Freecycle group near you, visit freecycle.org.

In Oakland, residents get one free bulky-item pickup a year. Items must fit into a space 3 feet high, 3 feet wide and 9 feet long. To schedule a pickup, call (510) 537-5500. Oakland also has a problem with illegally dumped items, including furniture, and aggressively pursues complaints. Fines can go as high as $4,000. To make a complaint, call the Public Works Department at (510) 434-5101.

Walnut Creek officials get only about four or five calls a month about furniture dumping. When they do, the city sends out a maintenance crew to pick up the item and haul it to the landfill. If they can find the responsible party, the city will charge him for the cleanup. To report a problem, call the city's Public Service Department at (925) 943-5854. Allied Waste Services provides pickups on Thursdays of unwanted furniture items for a $40 fee. To schedule a pickup, call (925) 685-4711 at least one day beforehand.

Hayward residents get one free pickup of furniture and other bulky items annually. To schedule a pickup, call (510) 537-5500. Items must fit into a space measuring 3 feet high, 3 feet deep and 6 feet long. For furniture dumped on the street, call the city's solid waste and recycling department at (510) 583-4700.

In San Rafael you can report furniture left on the street to the public works department at (415) 485-3355. The city's garbage collector, Marin Sanitary Service, does not offer free pickups of furniture. On its Web site (www.marinsanitary.com) contact information for organizations that take donations such as Goodwill are listed, as well as fee-based services as Got Junk, (800) 468-5865.

With its many apartment buildings, San Mateo has a persistent problem with furniture left on the streets, mostly by apartment dwellers who are moving out. Some homeowners also leave furniture in front of their houses. If they can identify the culprit, the city's Public Works Department will schedule one of the homeowner's two yearly free bulky-item collections for them. These are handled through San Mateo's garbage service, Allied Waste Services. To report items left on the street, call public works at (650) 522-7300. To schedule a bulky-item collection, call Allied at (650) 592-2411.

-- Paul Kilduff