FOOTLOCKER TRASH TO TREASURE

 Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Here is one of the latest!

Found this large, Sterilite brand, wheeled footlocker with latches and a lock.  At first I thought "oh, I wonder what's in it if they threw it away locked?".

Then I noticed that it looks like they lost the key and just had to cut through the plastic to open it.  Well, it was time to open it and see what was inside...

...empty!

No treasure (or worse, ha).  At least it was nice and clean.  Whatever was in it before us will forever remain a mystery.  Surely something this nice has a use for us?  When we got to the farm, it hit me...

...a great place to store all of our "freeze protection items" for the the citrus (that we don't currently have of course, ha).  The C9 bulbs that put out some heat, the freeze cloths, the elastic straps, the extension cords and the timer.  Since we've invested in these items, we still need to keep them for when do have fruit trees or other plants to protect and it makes sense to keep it all together in one location that we can easily get to.

Here it is full, closed up and ready to be relocated to the mower shed.  We found them for sale on Amazon here, Sterilite Footlocker , for $65!  So it was a great bargain that we've immediately been able to put to use.

I still need to cut that lock off but I'll do that one of these days.  It doesn't interfere with anything.

Anyway, someone disposed of it and we had a use for it and now it has a home in mower shed at at the farm.  Saved from the landfill.