Its a pretty regular thing around here. Folks knows the trash days, and they cruise the neighborhoods the night before. There have been quite a few times I have made the call for the special "Bulk" truck only to find the stuff gone the next morning, long before the trucks started rolling.
I think the stuff ends up at the Flea Markets. I get the "enterprising" spirit of it all, but some of the stuff they take has no resale value whatsoever. It baffles me, some of the stuff they grab.
Feels good to purge once in a while, I did that last spring and
through the summer, I'd fill my trailer and I made multiple trips to the dump. I cleaned a lot out my
shop and I emptied the basement from 30 years worth of "stuff". In the basement it all went, there was no "sorting" allowed. It's nice to walk down there and see it empty. Next spring I'm starting on the upstairs and the attic, tons of stuff that still needs to go.
Around here the college's are the places to curb
shop when the students get ready to move back home, most have no way to haul the big stuff with them and they toss it out. On campus they have to put the stuff in or next to the dumpsters which makes it easy to check out what's there. I never done it but I've drove by the piles and have seen a lot of stuff that looked pretty good. I was passing through the Cornell campus one day when I saw a really nice official size foosball table, that I would have grabbed but at the time I was driving a VW GTI. The rich kids throw away some nice stuff, a lot of them are from other countries so they toss out almost everything.