text: what are your feelings on dumpster hopping to find stuff to sell at yard sales or on ebay? my wife and i found fantastic sets of silverware and plates as well as perfectly good clothes in a dumpster when we were looking for wood scraps a few weeks ago. when we found those treasures we thought to ourselves, "hmmm, we might be on to something here!" i say go for it. if you don't rescue those things, they'll just be sitting in a dump somewhere taking up space and not decomposing.   you might as well take them, restore them (ie - give them one heck of a cleaning), and find them a good home. if you make a little money off of the deal, then more power to you.  if this is a hobby you'd like to start up, i recommend getting a truck and cruising the nicer apartment complexes in your area. people move in and out all the time and are constantly throwing out perfectly good things that they just don't want to move.