Cleaning House: Nextdoor.com

(I gave away my boys’ old play kitchen via Nextdoor.com.)

As I mentioned last week, the Ethical Writers Coalition is hosting a Second Hand Challenge for September, and my goal is to find alternative ways to pass along the things I no longer need in my house.

My neighborhood uses Nextdoor.com to communicate, and it’s a great resource for keeping in touch with the folks in your neighborhood and the surrounding areas. I’ve noticed that most of the posts from my neighbors focus on things like lost dogs, crime reports, and traffic issues. But there’s an entire section devoted to free items, so I decided to try it out with the play kitchen and some floral decorations I no longer need.

I posted the kitchen and the flowers separately, and within an hour or two, I had several responses to each post. One mom drove over immediately to pick up the kitchen for her young children, and she let me know later how much they love it. And the next morning, a neighbor stopped by to get the flowers for her house. It was so much easier than the back-and-forth conversations that take place with craigslist, and I got to meet two neighbors in the process.

My goal wasn’t to make any money, but to pass along my unused things to someone who might want to use them, and I was happy to find homes for everything. I’ve noticed that my neighbors are continuing to use the Free section, offering up items like extra fence material and even a couch. By keeping the posts local to our neighborhood, we’re conserving gas while recycling our unwanted items and passing them along to our neighbors who can use them. I definitely plan to offer more items in the future, and I was pleasantly surprised that my little experiment worked so quickly.