Today, behind the local charity thrift store...

[MineralMan]

As I was driving to a shop in the same strip mall that holds the thrift store, I went down an alley shortcut. Someone, apparently in the dark of night, had dropped off an 18-foot fiberglass boat hull, stripped of everything in the alley behind the thrift store. It looked to be beyond salvaging, so I assume the nice person thought it would be a good idea to dump his large piece of trash there, rather than dispose of it properly.

There were a couple of people from the non-profit thrift store standing near the boat, which was probably brought there on a boat trailer and then shoved off onto the pavement. They were shaking their heads sadly. Not only is the hull worthless, it will cost the thrift store money to have it picked up and hauled away to a disposal site.

I would be willing to bet any amount that the person who "donated" that worthless hull voted for Donald Trump in November, but I doubt I'll find any takers for my bet.

[yallerdawg]

1. You might start a meme!

"I bet that's a Trump voter!"

[oasis]

2. Deplorable behavior for sure. nt

[Warpy]

3. Yes, especially since it was blocking a public thoroughfare (the alley)

However, the cops might be able to uncover a registration number and track down the Trumper, er, owner, so make a call and suggest they call the cops over it.

Mr. Trumper is probably thinking they will find somebody who will pay $20 and haul it away to restore it and Mr. Trumper will take a few thousand off his taxes for his generous donation.

They do love to brag about their charitable contributions, you know, and hate taxes.

Go ahead, call and make the suggestion, ruin his day.

[MineralMan]

5. I looked as I drove by. Whoever dumped it scraped off the hull

registration numbers. All that was there was an unfaded area on the hull where the numbers had been. So, no luck there.

I had to dispose of an old fiberglass hull like that once. What I did was take a reciprocating saw and cut it up into pieces small enough to fit into my weekly trash collection wheelie bin. It took me three months to get rid of all of it. I could have hauled it to the landfill, but they would have charged me $100 to dump it there.

The thrift store will have to pay to have someone pick it up and haul it, and will still have to pay the fee at the landfill. I'm guessing it's going to cost them $3-400 total to get rid of it. I don't have a truck or boat trailer any longer, or I'd offer to haul it away for them. Maybe I'll offer to loan them my reciprocating saw and they can cut it up and put it in their trash dumpster.

[Warpy]

9. They'd probably appreciate it

It's just a shame an avaricious dirtbag might get away with it.

[Vinca]

4. That's not as bad as what I saw in front of the local thrift store this week.

A guy on a bench overdosed, keeled over and was hauled off by an ambulance. Don't know what happened to him.

[central scrutinizer]

6. Might have been stolen

Stealing trailers is often easier and more lucrative than stealing bicycles for tweakers. Steal the boat and trailer, dump the boat, fence the trailer on Craigslist. It happened two houses down from me. They just dumped the boat right in the yard and took the trailer.

[MineralMan]

7. I suppose. Or, they bought the hull and trailer,

but only wanted the trailer. There are lots of those around on Craigslist here in the Twin Cities. Lots! There are decrepit old hulls in backyards all over town. Sometimes, they're on a usable trailer, but if you want the trailer at a bargain price, you have to haul off the boat, too. That's where the hull I had to dispose of came from. $100 for the trailer and boat. I converted the trailer to another purpose, but had to cut up the boat with a reciprocating saw and put one part a week in my trash collection wheelie bin.

[Kaleva]

8. They know how to get rid of old boats in Florida

[GeorgeGist]

10. If they're 'like smart' they'll take a tax deduction for it too.

[Lee-Lee]

11. When I was a deputy

Old fiberglass boats were the most common illegally dumped item that got calls to us. People would sometimes just clean up garbage and not call us, but a boat was several steps up.

I always called the local wildlife officers, we only had 2 in the county, and they were pretty good at locating the hull serial numbers on a lot of them. And a lot were stupid enough to leave paperwork in the stowage areas we could trace. We tracked a lot of them back.

It also helped that one of the more popular dump spots was right down the road from a convinience store with great cameras. If I see your truck go by with a boat on the trailer that looks just like the dumped one and 20 minutes later you pull in with an empty trailer to get some beer, your busted.

I also responded to two illegally dumped mobile homes once. 1960's/70's singlewides they towed and left. Got both of them easy because they had VIN numbers on the phone.