What is the best thing you ever found in Oak Cliff bulk trash?

Sarah Valdez-Tate rescued this huge macrame planter from bulk trash.

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For Sarah Valdez-Tate, it’s this 12-foot macramé planter that’s now a focal point of her dining room.

She found it in the Red Bird area, outside a house that was being emptied out for sale. The workers put everything out on the curb. That same cache had an antique sewing machine and a marble tabletop that Valdez-Tate turned into a lazy Susan. “I’m a raccoon,” she says. “I love trash.”

What about rogue trash piles?

A neighbor installed some landscaping to discourage rogue trash piles.

Neighbor Juan Rodriguez had one on his block. For years, people consistently dumped trash near his home where there is a side yard facing the street.

As soon as bulk trash was picked up, a new pile would appear. Annoyed, Rodriguez wrote a letter to the person he thought was the dumper. And he wrote a letter to the property owner. But the trash pile persisted.

A few weeks ago, he got the idea to plant a garden there. Since he installed two chunks of grass and a leafy plant, there’s been no dumping.

“I had to find a way to stop it from happening,” says Rodriguez, a lifelong neighborhood resident. “North Oak Cliff is booming, and people don’t want to see trash out there in their neighborhood all month long.”

The City of Dallas is considering changes to how it handles bulky trash and brush pickup. Stay updated at oakcliff.advocatemag.com. Meanwhile, please tell us: What is the best thing you ever found in bulk trash? Have you ever done battle on a rogue trash pile? Send a photo and few sentences to rstone@advocatemag.com.