What is a curb alert, and how do you find them near you?

What “curb alert” means

A curb alert is a heads-up that something free is sitting outside right now. Someone has carried a dresser, a bike or a box of kitchen things to the edge of their property and posted a photo and a street name, so a neighbour can take it before the garbage truck does. Nobody holds it, nobody negotiates, and you usually don’t message first. You just go.

People post them because it beats a trip to the dump, or because they are moving out tomorrow. The item often has a “FREE” sign taped to it, which matters for the legal question below.

Where curb alerts get posted

There is no single home for curb alerts. The quickest finders watch two or three of these closely.

On Marketplace, many curb alerts skip the Free category and sit under Furniture at $0, so search the words rather than browse. Our guide to free stuff on Facebook Marketplace covers the $0 listings that really mean “message me for the price”.

How to find curb alerts near you

On Facebook Marketplace on a computer:

1. Go to facebook.com/marketplace and search for “curb alert”.
2. Set Sort by to Date listed: Newest first, so the last hour’s posts lead instead of Facebook’s suggestions.
3. Click your location, type your postal code (or ZIP code) and pick a small radius, such as 5 or 10 km. A curb find across town is usually gone by the time you arrive.
4. Set Delivery method to Local pickup, which clears out listings that ship.
5. Repeat with other words: “curb”, “free”, “must go”, “porch pickup”, “free to good home”, and in French, “gratuit” and “à donner”.
6. Bookmark each search. Facebook’s filters often reset, and the bookmark keeps the sort and radius.

In the Facebook app it works the same way: search, tap Filters, sort newest first, set your radius, then save the search or tap Notify me, depending on your version. Our guides to sorting by newest and local pickup only cover each device.

Then cover what Marketplace can’t. Join one or two local “curb alert” or “free stuff” groups with notifications on, and check Craigslist’s Free stuff section. On Kijiji, search “curb” in Free Stuff and click Notify me when new ads are posted, though Kijiji says its alerts arrive once a day, slow for anything on a curb. Our guide to free stuff alerts sets them up on every site. And if your city has a curb account on Instagram, turn on its post notifications: by mid-2021, New York’s @nycfreeatthecurb had posted more than 7,000 finds with exact locations, according to NY1.

How fast curb alert items go

Fast. A solid wood dresser in a busy neighbourhood can be gone within the hour, and anything left goes on garbage day or in the first rain, which ruins upholstery and particleboard.

Timing helps. The man behind @nycfreeatthecurb told NY1 the best finds turn up after 4 p.m. Fox 5 New York, profiling the couple behind Stooping NYC, adds two more: the end of the month, when people move out, and the evening before trash pickup. In Quebec, the days around July 1, when many leases end at once, are the busiest of the year.

Being ready matters as much as being fast. Keep straps, an old blanket and a tape measure in the car, have a second person on call for anything heavy, and measure the back seat before you drive over.

Is it legal to take things from the curb?

In most places, yes, when the item is clearly being given away. Property is abandoned when the owner gives it up voluntarily, and an item with a “FREE” sign, or one named in a curb alert, almost certainly has been. A bike leaning on a fence may not have been: it could be parked for an hour.

Three things can change the answer:

1. A local anti-scavenging rule. Rowlett, Texas passed one in 2016, after tornado damage, making it a class C misdemeanour to sort through or remove items from someone’s curb, with tickets of up to $500. People hired by the city, or with the homeowner’s permission, are exempt. Shelton, Connecticut has an anti-scavenging ordinance too. Rules like these can cover anything set out for collection, so search your city code for “scavenging”.
2. Where the item is. Driveways, porches, yards, the far side of a fence and a business’s dumpster are private property. Taking from there can be trespass or theft without the owner’s yes.
3. Garbage set out for pickup. In California v. Greenwood, the US Supreme Court held that people have no expectation of privacy in garbage left for collection, but it never decided whether others may take it. That is left to local rules.

If you are unsure, knock and ask. This is general information, not legal advice.

Giveaway weekends: curb alerts made official

Some cities run weekends when residents put reusable things at the curb for anyone to take, with the rules written down.

Both cities keep some things off the curb. Winnipeg excludes anything that could carry bed bugs, such as mattresses, furniture and bedding, toilets that use 13 litres or more per flush, and banned products like baby walkers and lawn darts. Ottawa excludes car and booster seats, baby gates and walkers, cribs and cradles, helmets, bedding and mattresses, and food. Those lists are a sound guide for any curb find.

To see whether your city runs one, search its waste pages for “giveaway weekend”, “curbside swap” or “bulky item day”. Yard sales are the other big weekend source; see how to find garage sales near you.

Curb alert etiquette

Take only what is marked free or named in the post. Don’t open bags or rummage through boxes, don’t block the sidewalk or a driveway while you load, and don’t leave half a dresser behind. If you said you were coming, come. Once you have it, reply “gone” in the thread or group so nobody else drives over for nothing.

Posting one yourself? One or two clear photos, the street and nearest cross street, when it went out, and a frank note on condition (“wobbly leg”, “cat hair”). Update the post the moment it is taken.

Check it before it goes in the car

Most curb finds are fine. Two kinds deserve a closer look.

Upholstered furniture and mattresses. The US Environmental Protection Agency advises checking secondhand furniture, beds and couches for signs of bed bugs before bringing them home. Look along seams, under cushions and in joints for small dark spots, shed skins or live bugs, and leave mattresses on the curb. Wood, metal and plastic are the safer finds. Our guides to used furniture and used mattresses go further.

Baby gear. An unidentified curb item leaves product history and completeness unresolved. Leave a car seat with unknown history. For US nursery products, check CPSC recalls and current product requirements; a familiar-looking crib is not proof of compliance. Canada separately bans baby walkers and traditional drop-side cribs. Our used baby gear guide separates US and Canadian checks.

Assume electronics that sat in the rain are dead, and test appliances at home using our used appliances checks.

Curb alerts on a computer, with Sift

Refreshing Marketplace all evening is a poor way to win a curb race. Sift is a free browser extension for Facebook Marketplace. There is no account to make, it works right in Chrome (and Edge and Brave) on a computer, and setup takes about a minute.

Search “curb alert”, “free” or “porch pickup” on Marketplace, or in Kijiji’s Free Stuff once you switch on Kijiji in Sift. Sift keeps the latest posts first on every search, hides anything past the distance you choose from home and puts the distance on every card, and can show only real giveaways, keeping out the $0 listings that mean “message for price”. Then press Watch in Sift, and it sends a notification soon after something new passes your filters, on your computer or, with Sift Pro, on your phone. The free stuff page has the details.

Sift checks the searches you watch in the background, even with the tab closed. The alert lands on your computer, and with Sift Pro it goes to your phone by Telegram, ntfy or email too, so you can grab the keys and go. Groups, Nextdoor and Instagram are still worth a look.