House-Moving Episode #6791

House-moving resumed; guess I'll be spending the next few Sundays clearing the stuff that gotta be discarded out of the old place. Today, we did DIY-karang guni again. Took all the cans, newspapers, cardboxes, and paper to this recycling company in Jurong industrial estate to sell. Think this is what the friendly neighbourhood karang guni [ shouting “KARANG GUNI! 收旧报纸，旧衣服，LAY-LEO，电视机。。。”and all in Hokkien, blaring his funny horn. ] does with the stuff that you have sold to him - bring them to this place and sell them to the REAL karang guni. Today, we undercut him, and went direct to the "big player"...

They'll put the stuff in those blue cages, according to which type of "waste" you have brought. To save the trouble, it's worth grouping your stuff into different catergories - newspapers and phonebooks go together; white paper with NO colour ink except black (i.e. those lecture notes that have been accumulating in your room) is another group; stuff made of cardbox-material type is yet another group, and cans should be separated as well. Those cans that are used for canned food should be separated from drink cans, cos they are of different material. All these are necessary cos the recycling company charges them (by the kilogrammes) differently, meaning they have different selling prices; the recycling company will weigh them separately before calculating how much you can get for your waste.

That's my Dad in the foreground.

A few shots of the place.

All these used to belongs to us. Now they are waiting to be recycled.

Receipt from the "Sales." Altogether, we earned $124.15 from the "waste" we have sold. Looks like the years of accumulating notes, cardboxes, newspapers and the what-have-yous are paying off. The last time we did this a year ago, we only got $88+.

Besides doing some "business," we also cleared quite abit of the old cupboards. Dad was lamenting how some of them are still sturdy and made of most durable wood that aren't used today to make furniture anymore. To me, it was more of seeing a part of you going into history, or more appropriately, ceasing to exist.

There was a small commotion when we finally left; the common rubbish chute that we had been using caught fire, and a group of SCDF ppl were here to deal with it.

Dinner was claypot curry fish head at Taman Jurong. As usual, it failed to disappoint, in terms of quality and price.

I figure House-Moving will need several more episodes before the finale can be "delivered," which means that subsequent weekends will be spent getting sweaty and sticky and dusty. Conclusion? House-Moving is no joke.

Signing off.................. Summer beckons...........
RC