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I salvaged $6k of luxury items discarded by Duke students

At the end of the school year, a lot gets tossed by Duke students at my downtown Durham apartment building. This year I decided to dive in.

I live in an apartment building in downtown Durham that houses more Duke University undergrads than any other category of person—a friend once characterized it as an “adult dorm”—so it wasn’t all that surprising when, last week, I found a cute little table in the trash room on my floor. A few months ago, a fire alarm went off, and it became apparent just how much of the building is occupied by Duke students, as nearly everyone except me, my roommate, and a family with two young kids was drunk and dressed in Cat in the Hat costumes.) In what would become my final scavenging trip of the year, I tried carrying too many things at once—a handheld vacuum, an air filter, some velvet hangers—and dropped the toaster oven, which splashed water all over me from its steam reservoir.

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