Abandoned Machinery Clean Up Can Be Highly Rewarding

Under this heading, we might have a factory where workers just left suddenly under orders, a natural disaster site, junk cars that an extended family has allowed to pile up, or a motley collection of rusty farm implements or industrial machinery that has been stored outside till it's looking mighty bad.

Of course you always try to get the owner to clean up after himself or herself, but sometimes that isn't successful. Sometimes you can't even find an owner, or the owner(s) have become incapacitated or gone out of business and can't be found.

Those are when, typically, the community gets involved. We always try to remind people that trespassing is against the law and a risk. We don't really mean to encourage the posse mentality when it comes to cleaning up messes, but it's such a frequent response of the best maintained and organized neighborhoods that we really can't ignore it.

So if you are determined to make your community look better...well, here's where we'd like to see people sharing what has been effective and what didn't work as well as they had hoped. Do you know of an instructive example? One you took part in?

If so, give us the story behind the success or failure. You can enter information and even send us photos below, and that will encourage someone else to talk about this issue. Even though the particular machinery may vary, depending on whether you are a farm community or an inner city, the principles should transfer from one situation to the next.

Good luck!

Tell About Your Abandoned Machinery Clean Up Project

If you did a project to clean up abandoned machinery, please give us your best tips. Tell a little about what type of machinery it was (farm machinery, abandoned industrial machinery, junk cars, or whatever). Where was it--on public property or private? How many people did you use, did you have trouble obtaining permission to do the project, did you have to hire any services or contractors, what safety precautions and equipment were necessary?

How much time did the project take? Would you do it again, and what would you do differently next time? (We hope you don't have to repeat this project!)

How do you think this dump started? Was it a formal dump that everyone knew about, or was it more of a place where people just began throwing out things? How are you trying to assure that the site stays clean and that people stop dumping there? Would you do it again?

If you have "before" and "after" photos, or either one, our visitors would like to see them.

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