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In San Francisco, Making a Living From Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash
Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.
There's a child's pink bicycle helmet that Mr. Orta dug out from the garbage bin across the street from Mr. Zuckerberg's house. And a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a coffee machine — all in working condition — and a pile of clothes that he carried home in a Whole Foods paper bag retrieved from Mr. Zuckerberg's bin.
A military veteran who fell into homelessness and now lives in government subsidized housing, Mr. Orta is a full-time trash picker, part of an underground economy in San Francisco of people who work the sidewalks in front of multimillion-dollar homes, rummaging for things they can sell.
One Zuck's trash is another man's "like new".
(Score: 2, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 07 2019, @07:10PM
This happens regularly in my neighborhood, and its definitely a good thing. On a regular basis pickup trucks with Mexican plates will pick up all the furniture people moving out leave in the alleys, then take it to Mex and then reupholster it and sell it. And with Craigslist's "free shit" category, it is super easy to offload obsolete but functional items.