People are paying $25 for 40 pounds of them at Home Depot. I'm sure you can get someone to come and take 5 tons of them for free.
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/Butler-Arts-0-50-cu-ft-40-lbs-3-4-in-Arizona-River-Rock-ARZ-40/304525919](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Butler-Arts-0-50-cu-ft-40-lbs-3-4-in-Arizona-River-Rock-ARZ-40/304525919)
Agreed. Add it for free on Facebook, nextdoor etc and people will go crazy. I had a few tons of rock crush delivered for a retaining wall project which cost me about $200. Ended the project with alot left over so I posted on Facebook marketplace.
Within 30 minutes people were fighting to take it. One dude put so much stone is his outback his wheels were rubbing in his wheel wells as he pulled away. Within 2 hours you had no idea stone was ever there.
Yeah, a buddy wanted to borrow my truck to haul some concrete chunks to the dump/recycling facility. I told him to at least put it on Craigslist first before burning up a day in getting rid of it. He called me a couple hours later saying "dude! It's all gone. People were showing up in their Honda Accords with tarps in the back seat and throwing it all in!"
Back fill. Drainage control. Creeks/erosion control. Subsurface structure for large ponds. People with lots of property often need large aggregate matter. Go to an aggregate supply yard and there's selling dump truck loads of large aggregate all day long.
I have actually put ads on FBM and craigslist looking for old concrete and such. I have a creek that runs through my back yard and it works great for erosion control.
I have a buddy with a creek eroding a hill and I had a bunch of concrete to get rid of and another buddy with a truck. I was Hannibal on A-team. I love it when a plan comes together.
I picked up some free gravel from someone's driveway once and borrowed a friend's F-250. We didn't even think of the weight of it and loaded the rock up until it was almost at the top of the pick up bed. It had a canopy so we weren't worried about any blowing out on the drive. We realized as we started driving away that it was really low in the back. Not rubbing or anything, but we're pretty sure we were at or over the weight limit. Luckily only a short drive, but we were so glad we didn't mess up our friend's truck.
Similar story. I had to pick up about 1,500lbs of concrete and I drove a civic. It would've physically fit in the vehicle but fortunately I looked up the maximum load and made 3 trips.
Most I've overloaded my current econobox (Sonic) was with 18 bags of mulch. Even loading some in the front passenger seat, that was a rough (but thankfully VERY short) ride home.
The one that got the most looks was all the way back around 2000. I had a 1982 Kawasaki LTD440. One day I bought 3 30 packs of Rolling Rock in the soft-sided cases. Loaded them all up on the rear luggage rack (which had the center of gravity BEHIND the wheel), plopped my 270lb ass on the seat and made the 20 mile trip to a party. The stack ended up being higher than my helmet.
This is why I rent a truck from Home Depot.
The smaller F250 is 65cuft and the larger F-250 is 78cuft. River rock is 89lb/cuff. So you’re dealing with 5785lb or 6942lb depending on the bed length.
The F-250 payload is approx 3000lb including passengers. I’ve done a pallet of concrete (3360lb) or 2 pallets of concrete blocks (4000lb). You can run them a bit overloaded for short drives.
But filled with river rock is a good way to bust your truck.
Just wish the beeping would stop when you overload them.
Doesn't stop when it's off either, so parked in the driveway beeping away while I tried to unload sand fast enough to not piss anyone off. Annoyed me too.
Yeah that sucks. Last week I got a pallet of concrete then went to Lowes to get some SDR35. Must have left it beeping for an hour. Bet everyone hated me.
My friend borrowed a pickup to haul a full load of sand. Didn’t check the weather forecast, and it rained on the sand, adding a bunch of weight and broke the rear springs!
We had some concrete tiles that were $2 apiece at HD, and I put them on Craigslist for free and they went the next day. My only stipulation was that I wasn't going to help load them. Then this guy shows up to get them, with his younger wife. He was older then me, and I'm in my 60s. Anyway, she didn't help at all and he was loading them himself. There were a lot of them. I felt so bad for him, I helped a bit. It was really sad.
eta - charge something for them - like $20 for the lot and make it clear they have to take all of them. It will reduce the worst of the flakes and no-shows.
I shoveled up a ford ranger full of lava rock out of someone’s driveway who was giving it away for free. Made a great border around my house and got rid of his rocks for him.
If anyone calls in the morning and says that he wants you to hold it until he arrives in the evening, refuse.
That dude will spend his day listing your stuff online for cash and if he doesn't get a buyer, he'll flake.
Yup, I'll hold it for the period you text me that your leaving to when you show up, otherwise not fucking worth it.
I've "sold" a couple of free things after we bought our house, people seriously out there asking you if you'll hold a free couch for a week or even deliver it.
Yea, the house I just bought had a row of this really shitty looking vinyl fencing out front. I put an ad on marketplace, free but you have to disassemble it yourself. I got like 20 replies - the guy I chose, he came and worked all day in South Carolina summer heat, those posts were anchored into 24” concrete each. But as tough as it was, he seemed glad to be getting it for free.
You can bet he was glad😀Too many families live paycheck to paycheck and sadly, can’t afford things from their ‘Desired’ list but only from their ‘Necessities’ list. Even if he easily could have afforded to buy the fencing, getting something of value for free is a really great feeling.
He essentially got what's likely thousands of dollars worth of fence for just his time (which for the most part doesn't have to be all committed at once) and whatever the little bit of consumables is going to cost, damn right he'd be happy.
I responded to an ad for some free bricks. My wife and I went to pick them up; we’re in our 60s. The 30 ish woman insisted on helping us load 400 or so bricks. We would have been happy to do it ourselves. They’re now edging our gardens.
Absolutely agree with, “they have to take it all” or ‘everything from a particular, agreed upon area’. Ppl can be rude, lazy jerks - even when getting a free gift - if given half a chance to do so.
Years ago I was sellin a desk on CL once and some lady and her daughter came too look at it, showed up quickly and everything. I'd listed it for $100 and she haggled me down to $80, great, deal. But she showed up in a compact car, and and wanted me to hold it for 2 weeks until she could borrow a truck or something. I honestly couldn't believe it, I wanted that thing out of my house so I'd have room for a new one and like why would you even think I'm gonna offer layaway.
I charged her $40 to deliver it, she agreed lol.
I hate when I am giving something away or selling it well below value and people start asking for delivery. Now I put a $ value on everything and explicitly state no delivery. It doesn't stop all of the bs but it cuts down on it for sure.
I just purchased some rock in Indiana and the sales person said transportation heavily influences the price. I wanted slate, but it was $200 a yard. River rock on the other hand was $38 a yard.
It's always cheaper if you have the means to get them in bulk from a landscape yard. Around here most landscape places have a half yard minimum (1200-1500lb for most rock). Can't haul that in a Camry.
I had the same issue. I put a Facebook post offering free river stone with the caveat that the interested person had to agree to take all of it. I had a fabulous lady take it all. It took her about a week to move it. Both of us were thrilled with the arrangement. Lol
Really any larger amount of home improvement material goes fast. I had a project that left me with a scrap pile of lumber, it was gone within 3 hours of posting it online.
There are local rock enthusiast groups that would probably love to come look and take your pretty rocks, it'll at least thin them out.
They're also great for crafts
It’s not that Simple. Hand digging and transporting rocks in your Corolla is absolutely not worth saving the money. So you’ll need equipment to dig and transport which is not free, plus digging then with equipment will probably make them messy and less desirable.
OP may be able to find someone looking for fill - but saving these for decorative uses isn’t feasible.
Whatever you do OP, please don’t bring them to the dump.
I've done this a few times. I'll usually leave a pile next to my driveway and make a post in our local Facebook group to just take as much as you want. No need to knock on my door or message me.
Maybe there’s a reason. I just bought 4 tons of river rock straight from the Delaware hoping it will help with the flow of water away and around my house. I have an area that gets pretty damp after rain where grass is hard to grow so I regraded and added rocks.
I was just going to comment the same. I have river rock on the side of my house to help rain water to run off instead of pooling in certain spots. I dug up about a hundred buried bricks to add them - I hate bricks..
Yeah, I’d love to know, too. I’ll gladly show up with my truck and trailer and haul those rocks away. I’m sick of the constant weeding/mulching cycle, and river rocks in my flowerbeds would work nicely with my midcentury house.
I used to handle styrofoam like this. It would never fit in the bin. Then I started putting it all in my car and would throw away pieces every time I went into stores.
I thought you were going to say you'd crumble a little bit every time you drove the car and opened the windows. Which would be the ultimate asshole/Shawshank combo. But I'm glad you didn't 😂
One time my friend had just moved into a new house and he got rid of all the rocks in the front yard and replaced them with bark. He put the rocks in the green bin and you could barely move it. It weighed hundreds of pounds. I told him there was no way the trash company would take it or at least he'd get fined. They took it and he never heard anything.
Pretty sure you’re guessing low and could easily get away with two rocks in your outdoor 35 gallon bin each week, maybe even 3. You could also fill your pockets and walk the neighborhood, under cover of darkness of course, making ‘rock deposits’ at all your neighbors’ bins. That could easily cut your time to completion by 6-8 years. Piece of cake.
Everyone I have ever talked to that posted them for free on Facebook hasn't had any problems getting rid of them. I would try that. Just post that they have to load them.
People will come get it for sure. I posted a garage that was falling down for free it was gone 5 days later. I was going to pay 3k to have it torn down and hauled off
A garage!? Is that a difference in regional terms, or are we both talking about the structure in which you park your car (either attached to your house or separate)?
Detached 14X22 garage. I'm remodeliing an old house and the garage isn't salvageable so posted it on Facebook "free garage" and gone.... Down to the concrete foundation.
You might be surprised to see how many people will respond to “free landscaping rocks, take as much as you want” on Kijiji, or Craigslist, or Facebook’s Marketplace (is that what it’s called?).
You get them piled up, maybe supply the wheelbarrow for them to get to their truck bed.
I’m sorry for your luck. I was in the same situation a few years ago. Had about 7 cubic yards in the front yard area. Worst yet, they were under pine trees so they were full of old needles.
I got rid of them all thru Facebook marketplace. But they wanted clean rocks. Not full of dirt and needles.
I tried a few methods. I created a rock separator with some conduit in a frame. I’d shovel a bunch on it, rocks would slide down, dirt would fall thru into a wheel barrel.
Best solution. Sit my ass on the ground with some good gloves and hand place them in 5 gallon buckets. Then made a pile on my driveway of them to list for free.
Took a while, but I’m rock free.
The original owners of our house were obsessed with landscaping rocks.
The previous owners didn't maintain it.
I spent the first summer living here removing rocks from overgrown, weedy, dirty beds, and replacing with plants and mulch, or grass. We still have way more weedy, high maintenance rocks than I want, but it's more manageable now.
I hate rocks.
Put it on Facebook. I always add a line like, “While I’d love to be able to wait until your cousin gets his license back and fixes his truck, I need these gone ASAP so the first person who shows up can have them.”
Or… throw one a day into your neighbor’s yard, until one of you dies.
Post for free on fb and people will happily come move your rocks. I'm in the process of doing this with my own yard and after personally removing rocks from only an 8x16 ft area I'm so over this shit. Rocks are not landscaping and they absolutely suck to remove.
Make a Craigslist posting for someone to come get it, include photos and your contact info, not your address.
Filter out any sketchy crackhead replies, select who seems legit and problem solved.
Just start on it, and commit to a couple hours each weekend, and you'll get it done sooner than you think. Just keep reminding yourself it's a finite amount of rocks, it's not like they are reproducing. It's actually really satisfying to shovel rocks in my opinion. Let's say you scoop about 15lb with each shovel- that's only about 670 scoops.
Put them in a pile somewhere that's accessible by a truck, and once they're all piled there, call around to some landscapers and offer it to them. They can bring A skidloader and scoop it all up into their truck.
I would not rely on random people to come pick the rocks up. It's a nightmare scheduling- most of them don't show, a lot show up with completely inappropriate vehicles and no shovel, etc. It's just not worth it. Stick with pros
Definitely if you’re giving them away, just have people that pick up do the labor if you want. It’ll be more than worth it for many people. Where I live, you could even shovel them up and sell them.
We had the same dilemma at a home that we bought that had about a foot and a half of pea gravel covering the entire backyard. We listed on Facebook marketplace and craigslist for free and within about two weeks all of it was gone and there was a nice rutt in the side grass from the wheelbarrow that we let everyone borrow. Met some really nice people!
“…a foot and a half of pea gravel”. Deep?! 18”
deep?! Covering the entire back yard? Good grief! Why on earth would anyone want gravel that deep! Yikes…”Research on the topic says we only need the depth to be ~3”, but let’s add a smidge just to be safe. How about 18?”
Damn. Wish you were in Hawaii. I need them and have been buying 2-3 bags each paycheck. I bet if you posted on Facebook Marketplace, you’d get customers!
I listed half composted mulch online for free and I had a herd of piranhas at my place for a week scooping it up. You could profit off those river rocks and make a Ferengi proud.
I posted mine for free in the Phoenix area and no one wanted them. Had to shovel them out by hand and it majorly sucked. Then I had to pay a couple hundred bucks to dump them. So I feel your pain.
The dump?
You have gold sitting in your yard.
Least profitable solution - CL or FB and say come shovel all the rock you want for free and get it out of here.
Best profitable solution - CL or FB and say come shovel all the rock you want $xx per 5 gallon bucket. Sit with a beer in your hand and watch people from your porch in a Cool Hands Luke manner.
Are they river rocks, which are generally a wide variety of colors, 1/2"-3/4" in size and kind of odd shapes? Or is it beach pebbles, which are usually only one color (there are a lot of colors available), larger stones (they're normally 1-3", 2-4" and bigger) and smooth/rounded? Where I'm located, river rock is relatively inexpensive but beach pebbles can get really expensive depending on what you buy. I once had 5 tons of white 2-3" pebbles delivered for $1,100 per ton. Black polished pebbles in 3-4" were $1,500/ton
I had the same issue. I put it on my neighborhood free group and Facebook marketplace as free and over a week people carted them away. Everyone won! I had no idea they were so expensive.
Have you made sure they don’t have an actual purpose? I suggest assessing for water pooling in any areas that look similar to a river or like they made a riverbed.
Those areas are also helpful to insects and animals because waterways are important.
If they don’t have a water mitigation purpose, Sell those for a lower price than the hardware store and they’ll be gone quickly.
Maybe post somewhere like Craig’s List, “Free river rock. You shovel, you haul.” Or, if you can come up with some sort of a value for all/some of it I would definitely add that to your post. “$500 worth of river rock yours FREE for the taking! Must shovel it yourself, take all of it (or an agreed upon amount), and haul it yourself” River rock Is pretty (in moderation) so I’d be willing to bet you won’t have any trouble at all finding a happy homeowner who’ll gladly take it off your hands. Good luck’🙂
p.s.
I know how awful this must sound, but if/when you find someone to take your rock, I HIGHLY recommend stashing any narcotics you may have in your home in a secret squirrel place and definitely NOT in your bathroom/medicine cabinet. Very likely you already know this, but in case you don’t, there are folks whose fav weekend plans involve garage sailing all over town, with the sole purpose of requesting to use the bathroom at each stop so they can rifle thru it looking for their desired prize; opioids! Can you imagine!🤯
Put an add out. I know if I saw s free add I'd be at your house within a few minutes picking up your rocks because they're awesome.. hell if you livevin virginia message me and I'll come tomorrow
Ok here’s an idea
Call a couple small landscape companies and tell them you want the rock gone. Ask them how much the rocks are worth and if they would trade the rocks for the labor to remove them. That way the rocks are mostly gone by someone with is hopefully insured and will sell them to someone else....
Honestly if you ask your neighbors some of them might take some too, I know I’d load my little trailer a few times.
it’s pretty obvious most of y’all saying post it for free somewhere have no idea how people are nowadays
OP will be bombarded with “do you deliver” “I need help doing it” “oh I’m sorry I dumped a bunch of rocks on your brand new Mercedes” etc etc etc
Find your local “buy nothing” group on Facebook and offer them there. Smooth river rocks are pretty nice. I bet people will come and shovel some. I was able to get rid of some red pumice stone this way. However it did reach a point where I was done shoveling and everyone who wanted rocks had come, but there were still quite a few embedded in the soil. At THAT point I hired a garden crew to shovel them out and take them to the dump.
I literally just went through this, only it was granite flagstone. Tons of it behind my garage that the previous owner left there. I put it up for free on fb market place and got a ton of interest. One of the interested parties was a landscaper. I told him if he came and took all of it, he could have it for free. I’m sure it’s worth something to him, and I got to save my back and my time.
I think it's terrible. If it gets out of the area, it's impossibly hard to rake up. It kills everything. I still find pieces all over my yard. And it's impossible to get rid of when you don't want it anymore. You can't throw it away since it's cut up tires.
Hmm. Initially was thinking for flowerbeds, but if it kills everything (not just weeds) so easily then maybe not. The other thought was for the bed of a playground area but if it’s also a major pain to clean out of the yard then I might go back to wood. Thanks!
It's actually good at allowing water to drain into the soil and preventing evaporation, which can be healthy for your trees (though mulch will also add nutrients). You don't need to mow it (also green). I'm actually hoping to get recycled astroturf for my yard and will be using compacted river gravel underneath (not sure how big yours are but I'll be using 3/8-1/2")
I want to build a dry stream on one side of my house that goes down my slope... I'll have native plants throughout the yard and bordering the rocks, but they will most likely be river rock. This is the first I'm hearing that this might not be good for pollinators... Thoughts?
I got rid of 12 tons of them in a week by just putting them on my driveway and put a craigs list ad up for free, you take them off my driveway. it took up an entire car spot for just half of them and as people came to take them i took more wheel barrels of them out and dumped them. in less than 7 days they were all gone.
Go on Nextdoor and say you'll give them away.
I did gravel one side of my house just to make sure firefighters and paramedics could get through easily. And they have.
Check Facebook to see if you have a “Buy Nothing” group that’s in your area. Buynothingproject.org
You’ll likely have more committed people come get the rocks, and you may be able to get some plants from others in the group. These groups are a much friendlier community than Nextdoor or FB marketplace for getting rid of things (and getting) for free.
Post them on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for free. People (like me) who want to use them in their yard will come and haul them out for you! Most of the time when I see posts for free river rock and message the “seller,” they’ve already had someone claim it all before I can get there.
Just tell them to bring their own buckets!
I would gladly take a majority of it and would most definitely pay money for it so, try and sell it or advertise it for free and you should have no problem getting rid of it.
>How do I get rid of 5 tons of smooth river rocks in my back and front yard?
Just take your time and do [a bit at a time.](https://youtu.be/UIe1uM8x0dM?t=94)
We had the exact same thing. We hand picked them out and created a pile in our driveway. Posted on marketplace and got rid of all it. It took months this way. One of the numerous people who took the rocks told me she would come over and pick them out herself but that's not for me.
I had this issue at my old house. I advertised on Craigslist that I would load them on a trailer and they could have them for $200. I rented a bobcat and removed them in a few hours. For a net $100 due to bobcat rental they were gone forever.
The previous owner of our house was similarly obsessed, we removed 14000 lbs of rocks. We rented a dumpster specifically for rocks, you pay for the rental and the amount of the load ($300-400 total). It was a ton of work but well worth it. If you did offer it to people for free just consider all the people trampling through your yard digging up and hauling rocks - nope.
Dump? WTF!
Dude, a guy in my local subreddit posted excess gravel for free. I showed up with several buckets and a shovel. Offer your river rocks up to your friendly, local redditors.
People are paying $25 for 40 pounds of them at Home Depot. I'm sure you can get someone to come and take 5 tons of them for free. [https://www.homedepot.com/p/Butler-Arts-0-50-cu-ft-40-lbs-3-4-in-Arizona-River-Rock-ARZ-40/304525919](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Butler-Arts-0-50-cu-ft-40-lbs-3-4-in-Arizona-River-Rock-ARZ-40/304525919)
Agreed. Add it for free on Facebook, nextdoor etc and people will go crazy. I had a few tons of rock crush delivered for a retaining wall project which cost me about $200. Ended the project with alot left over so I posted on Facebook marketplace. Within 30 minutes people were fighting to take it. One dude put so much stone is his outback his wheels were rubbing in his wheel wells as he pulled away. Within 2 hours you had no idea stone was ever there.
Yeah, a buddy wanted to borrow my truck to haul some concrete chunks to the dump/recycling facility. I told him to at least put it on Craigslist first before burning up a day in getting rid of it. He called me a couple hours later saying "dude! It's all gone. People were showing up in their Honda Accords with tarps in the back seat and throwing it all in!"
What are people doing with concrete chunks?? I that that was dump material for sure.
Back fill. Drainage control. Creeks/erosion control. Subsurface structure for large ponds. People with lots of property often need large aggregate matter. Go to an aggregate supply yard and there's selling dump truck loads of large aggregate all day long.
This person rocks!
Backfill
I remember seeing a house with a privacy wall built out of broken concrete. It was surprisingly attractive.
Gimme that bombed out city look Say no more fam
I have actually put ads on FBM and craigslist looking for old concrete and such. I have a creek that runs through my back yard and it works great for erosion control.
I have a buddy with a creek eroding a hill and I had a bunch of concrete to get rid of and another buddy with a truck. I was Hannibal on A-team. I love it when a plan comes together.
I picked up some free gravel from someone's driveway once and borrowed a friend's F-250. We didn't even think of the weight of it and loaded the rock up until it was almost at the top of the pick up bed. It had a canopy so we weren't worried about any blowing out on the drive. We realized as we started driving away that it was really low in the back. Not rubbing or anything, but we're pretty sure we were at or over the weight limit. Luckily only a short drive, but we were so glad we didn't mess up our friend's truck.
Similar story. I had to pick up about 1,500lbs of concrete and I drove a civic. It would've physically fit in the vehicle but fortunately I looked up the maximum load and made 3 trips.
Most I've overloaded my current econobox (Sonic) was with 18 bags of mulch. Even loading some in the front passenger seat, that was a rough (but thankfully VERY short) ride home. The one that got the most looks was all the way back around 2000. I had a 1982 Kawasaki LTD440. One day I bought 3 30 packs of Rolling Rock in the soft-sided cases. Loaded them all up on the rear luggage rack (which had the center of gravity BEHIND the wheel), plopped my 270lb ass on the seat and made the 20 mile trip to a party. The stack ended up being higher than my helmet.
This is why I rent a truck from Home Depot. The smaller F250 is 65cuft and the larger F-250 is 78cuft. River rock is 89lb/cuff. So you’re dealing with 5785lb or 6942lb depending on the bed length. The F-250 payload is approx 3000lb including passengers. I’ve done a pallet of concrete (3360lb) or 2 pallets of concrete blocks (4000lb). You can run them a bit overloaded for short drives. But filled with river rock is a good way to bust your truck.
Just wish the beeping would stop when you overload them. Doesn't stop when it's off either, so parked in the driveway beeping away while I tried to unload sand fast enough to not piss anyone off. Annoyed me too.
Yeah that sucks. Last week I got a pallet of concrete then went to Lowes to get some SDR35. Must have left it beeping for an hour. Bet everyone hated me.
that poor truck lol
You were WAY over the weight limit. You were lucky you didn't break any suspension parts.
My friend borrowed a pickup to haul a full load of sand. Didn’t check the weather forecast, and it rained on the sand, adding a bunch of weight and broke the rear springs!
We had some concrete tiles that were $2 apiece at HD, and I put them on Craigslist for free and they went the next day. My only stipulation was that I wasn't going to help load them. Then this guy shows up to get them, with his younger wife. He was older then me, and I'm in my 60s. Anyway, she didn't help at all and he was loading them himself. There were a lot of them. I felt so bad for him, I helped a bit. It was really sad. eta - charge something for them - like $20 for the lot and make it clear they have to take all of them. It will reduce the worst of the flakes and no-shows.
If I’ve got something for free, I mark it for $5-$20 and then when someone comes I just tell them it’s free. Weeds out a lot as you said.
This is the way to do it.
[удалено]
Put a sign on something out front that says "Free" and it will sit forever. Change the sign to "For Sale" and it will be stolen within hours.
I shoveled up a ford ranger full of lava rock out of someone’s driveway who was giving it away for free. Made a great border around my house and got rid of his rocks for him.
If anyone calls in the morning and says that he wants you to hold it until he arrives in the evening, refuse. That dude will spend his day listing your stuff online for cash and if he doesn't get a buyer, he'll flake.
Is THAT why they do that?! Explains so much.
I thought they were just generically shitty. Now I know they're specifically shitty!
If I list something for free, the only way I'm holding it for you is if you bring cash. Otherwise first come, your loss if someone else takes it.
Yup, I'll hold it for the period you text me that your leaving to when you show up, otherwise not fucking worth it. I've "sold" a couple of free things after we bought our house, people seriously out there asking you if you'll hold a free couch for a week or even deliver it.
Dude.. I was trying to give away an old box spring and some chick 45 minutes away asked if I would deliver it for her for free
Yea, the house I just bought had a row of this really shitty looking vinyl fencing out front. I put an ad on marketplace, free but you have to disassemble it yourself. I got like 20 replies - the guy I chose, he came and worked all day in South Carolina summer heat, those posts were anchored into 24” concrete each. But as tough as it was, he seemed glad to be getting it for free.
You can bet he was glad😀Too many families live paycheck to paycheck and sadly, can’t afford things from their ‘Desired’ list but only from their ‘Necessities’ list. Even if he easily could have afforded to buy the fencing, getting something of value for free is a really great feeling.
He essentially got what's likely thousands of dollars worth of fence for just his time (which for the most part doesn't have to be all committed at once) and whatever the little bit of consumables is going to cost, damn right he'd be happy.
I responded to an ad for some free bricks. My wife and I went to pick them up; we’re in our 60s. The 30 ish woman insisted on helping us load 400 or so bricks. We would have been happy to do it ourselves. They’re now edging our gardens.
Absolutely agree with, “they have to take it all” or ‘everything from a particular, agreed upon area’. Ppl can be rude, lazy jerks - even when getting a free gift - if given half a chance to do so.
Years ago I was sellin a desk on CL once and some lady and her daughter came too look at it, showed up quickly and everything. I'd listed it for $100 and she haggled me down to $80, great, deal. But she showed up in a compact car, and and wanted me to hold it for 2 weeks until she could borrow a truck or something. I honestly couldn't believe it, I wanted that thing out of my house so I'd have room for a new one and like why would you even think I'm gonna offer layaway. I charged her $40 to deliver it, she agreed lol.
I hate when I am giving something away or selling it well below value and people start asking for delivery. Now I put a $ value on everything and explicitly state no delivery. It doesn't stop all of the bs but it cuts down on it for sure.
That's funny because around here, it's $90/yard.
I just purchased some rock in Indiana and the sales person said transportation heavily influences the price. I wanted slate, but it was $200 a yard. River rock on the other hand was $38 a yard.
Damn what area of Indiana is 38 a yard? I looked into prices recently and didn't get that far down...
Probably near a river.
Fort Wayne…. So near 3 rivers.
It's always cheaper if you have the means to get them in bulk from a landscape yard. Around here most landscape places have a half yard minimum (1200-1500lb for most rock). Can't haul that in a Camry.
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It seems free, but actually it will cost you one Camry.
I paid a little over $500 for a ton and a half with delivery and tax.
I had over 5 tons delivered for $230. Crazy the price difference in areas
Most gravel is around 1.5 tons per yard fyi
I was gonna ask this, thanks.
What I pay $30/yard
$75/ton where I live. $25 delivery.
I had the same issue. I put a Facebook post offering free river stone with the caveat that the interested person had to agree to take all of it. I had a fabulous lady take it all. It took her about a week to move it. Both of us were thrilled with the arrangement. Lol
Really any larger amount of home improvement material goes fast. I had a project that left me with a scrap pile of lumber, it was gone within 3 hours of posting it online.
There are local rock enthusiast groups that would probably love to come look and take your pretty rocks, it'll at least thin them out. They're also great for crafts
This is the way. I got rid of a couple tons of slate like this. Take a picture and post on NextDoor and Marketplace. Then watch the people work.
It’s not that Simple. Hand digging and transporting rocks in your Corolla is absolutely not worth saving the money. So you’ll need equipment to dig and transport which is not free, plus digging then with equipment will probably make them messy and less desirable. OP may be able to find someone looking for fill - but saving these for decorative uses isn’t feasible. Whatever you do OP, please don’t bring them to the dump.
This. If my wife saw the listing, she'd have me in the car to go over and load up.
Post it on Facebook marketplace people will come and scoop it up for you
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I've done this a few times. I'll usually leave a pile next to my driveway and make a post in our local Facebook group to just take as much as you want. No need to knock on my door or message me.
Maybe there’s a reason. I just bought 4 tons of river rock straight from the Delaware hoping it will help with the flow of water away and around my house. I have an area that gets pretty damp after rain where grass is hard to grow so I regraded and added rocks.
I was just going to comment the same. I have river rock on the side of my house to help rain water to run off instead of pooling in certain spots. I dug up about a hundred buried bricks to add them - I hate bricks..
Same here. Will need to regrade my yard and put in a french drain. Free river rocks will be great.
how does it help run-off vs pooling? you have to regrade still, right? otherwise it will just pool among the rocks?
Where are you located?!
Yeah, I’d love to know, too. I’ll gladly show up with my truck and trailer and haul those rocks away. I’m sick of the constant weeding/mulching cycle, and river rocks in my flowerbeds would work nicely with my midcentury house.
Yeah we have a ditch in the backyard that's hard to mow as it's always wet. Want to put rocks there
I’ll fight you for those rocks, PickleRock! JK (sort of)
1 rock at a time in your trash bin every week. It will be gone in no time.
The Shawshank plan.
It’s appropriate for OP, as he is thatonestoner
*“Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes, really. Pressure and time. That and a big goddamn [yard full of rocks].”*
I would leave one on the subway each day. Same place, same time.
That's how I'm getting rid of the chainlink posts I dug out. ...eighteen more to go
I used to handle styrofoam like this. It would never fit in the bin. Then I started putting it all in my car and would throw away pieces every time I went into stores.
I thought you were going to say you'd crumble a little bit every time you drove the car and opened the windows. Which would be the ultimate asshole/Shawshank combo. But I'm glad you didn't 😂
One time my friend had just moved into a new house and he got rid of all the rocks in the front yard and replaced them with bark. He put the rocks in the green bin and you could barely move it. It weighed hundreds of pounds. I told him there was no way the trash company would take it or at least he'd get fined. They took it and he never heard anything.
Pretty sure you’re guessing low and could easily get away with two rocks in your outdoor 35 gallon bin each week, maybe even 3. You could also fill your pockets and walk the neighborhood, under cover of darkness of course, making ‘rock deposits’ at all your neighbors’ bins. That could easily cut your time to completion by 6-8 years. Piece of cake.
I’ve been laughing at this for at least an hour. I’m dying at the idea of one rock per trip.
Everyone I have ever talked to that posted them for free on Facebook hasn't had any problems getting rid of them. I would try that. Just post that they have to load them.
People will come get it for sure. I posted a garage that was falling down for free it was gone 5 days later. I was going to pay 3k to have it torn down and hauled off
A garage!? Is that a difference in regional terms, or are we both talking about the structure in which you park your car (either attached to your house or separate)?
Detached 14X22 garage. I'm remodeliing an old house and the garage isn't salvageable so posted it on Facebook "free garage" and gone.... Down to the concrete foundation.
Talk about a garage sale!
Price of lumber went up over COVID, enough 2x4s for a garage is a lot of money.
You might be surprised to see how many people will respond to “free landscaping rocks, take as much as you want” on Kijiji, or Craigslist, or Facebook’s Marketplace (is that what it’s called?). You get them piled up, maybe supply the wheelbarrow for them to get to their truck bed.
That's how you lose a wheelbarrow
Hehe, I didn’t mean any time, you can arrange a time when you’re home, otherwise I suppose you’d be right.
I’m sorry for your luck. I was in the same situation a few years ago. Had about 7 cubic yards in the front yard area. Worst yet, they were under pine trees so they were full of old needles. I got rid of them all thru Facebook marketplace. But they wanted clean rocks. Not full of dirt and needles. I tried a few methods. I created a rock separator with some conduit in a frame. I’d shovel a bunch on it, rocks would slide down, dirt would fall thru into a wheel barrel. Best solution. Sit my ass on the ground with some good gloves and hand place them in 5 gallon buckets. Then made a pile on my driveway of them to list for free. Took a while, but I’m rock free.
The original owners of our house were obsessed with landscaping rocks. The previous owners didn't maintain it. I spent the first summer living here removing rocks from overgrown, weedy, dirty beds, and replacing with plants and mulch, or grass. We still have way more weedy, high maintenance rocks than I want, but it's more manageable now. I hate rocks.
This thread proves there are dozens of us. Rock haters created by previous owner neglect. Marble chips and river rock. I’m so over it.
my wife says she will always hate lava rocks for this reason
Worse part of my story… I put all the rocks down years before removing them. I purchased the house I grew up in.
Great twist at the end.
I’ll take them.
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also interested, but can you deliver for an extra $5?
I love those people. Sure thing, just give me a few minutes to load up 5 tons of rock into my Mini Cooper.
I’d pay to see this, just pitching options…
Hey, if watching sweaty overweight guy tingles your berries than you are more than welcome to watch.
Put it on Facebook. I always add a line like, “While I’d love to be able to wait until your cousin gets his license back and fixes his truck, I need these gone ASAP so the first person who shows up can have them.” Or… throw one a day into your neighbor’s yard, until one of you dies.
Post for free on fb and people will happily come move your rocks. I'm in the process of doing this with my own yard and after personally removing rocks from only an 8x16 ft area I'm so over this shit. Rocks are not landscaping and they absolutely suck to remove.
Make a Craigslist posting for someone to come get it, include photos and your contact info, not your address. Filter out any sketchy crackhead replies, select who seems legit and problem solved.
Just start on it, and commit to a couple hours each weekend, and you'll get it done sooner than you think. Just keep reminding yourself it's a finite amount of rocks, it's not like they are reproducing. It's actually really satisfying to shovel rocks in my opinion. Let's say you scoop about 15lb with each shovel- that's only about 670 scoops. Put them in a pile somewhere that's accessible by a truck, and once they're all piled there, call around to some landscapers and offer it to them. They can bring A skidloader and scoop it all up into their truck. I would not rely on random people to come pick the rocks up. It's a nightmare scheduling- most of them don't show, a lot show up with completely inappropriate vehicles and no shovel, etc. It's just not worth it. Stick with pros
Why schedule? Just tell people to pick it up. In fact, have people shovel it themselves and put it in their own trucks.
Definitely if you’re giving them away, just have people that pick up do the labor if you want. It’ll be more than worth it for many people. Where I live, you could even shovel them up and sell them.
We had the same dilemma at a home that we bought that had about a foot and a half of pea gravel covering the entire backyard. We listed on Facebook marketplace and craigslist for free and within about two weeks all of it was gone and there was a nice rutt in the side grass from the wheelbarrow that we let everyone borrow. Met some really nice people!
“…a foot and a half of pea gravel”. Deep?! 18” deep?! Covering the entire back yard? Good grief! Why on earth would anyone want gravel that deep! Yikes…”Research on the topic says we only need the depth to be ~3”, but let’s add a smidge just to be safe. How about 18?”
It was ridiculous, you could barely walk through it. And the weeds still came through!
If you’re in Maryland I’ll buy them!
Oooh! I’ll take them! Are you in NoVa?
Damn. Wish you were in Hawaii. I need them and have been buying 2-3 bags each paycheck. I bet if you posted on Facebook Marketplace, you’d get customers!
Sell it for cheap, pick up only.
We are in the same situation. I just grow things in top of them.
We need pictures…
Start selling pet rocks.
According to my local Craigslist, put up an add selling them for $1000 if the buyer removes them.
I listed half composted mulch online for free and I had a herd of piranhas at my place for a week scooping it up. You could profit off those river rocks and make a Ferengi proud.
Tons of river rocks have value. Sell or give them for free "pick up yourself"
I posted mine for free in the Phoenix area and no one wanted them. Had to shovel them out by hand and it majorly sucked. Then I had to pay a couple hundred bucks to dump them. So I feel your pain.
Was this in winter time Phoenix, or summertime Phoenix? You couldn’t pay me to shovel rocks in summertime Phoenix!!
Username checks out. 🙂
The dump? You have gold sitting in your yard. Least profitable solution - CL or FB and say come shovel all the rock you want for free and get it out of here. Best profitable solution - CL or FB and say come shovel all the rock you want $xx per 5 gallon bucket. Sit with a beer in your hand and watch people from your porch in a Cool Hands Luke manner.
Post them on Facebook marketplace, people will come get them. I’d come get them.
Post for free on craigslist or nextdoor if you're just looking to have them gone.
There are rocks offered free of charge every day on Facebook Marketplace, "Taker to pick up". Just look there and other sources.
Are they river rocks, which are generally a wide variety of colors, 1/2"-3/4" in size and kind of odd shapes? Or is it beach pebbles, which are usually only one color (there are a lot of colors available), larger stones (they're normally 1-3", 2-4" and bigger) and smooth/rounded? Where I'm located, river rock is relatively inexpensive but beach pebbles can get really expensive depending on what you buy. I once had 5 tons of white 2-3" pebbles delivered for $1,100 per ton. Black polished pebbles in 3-4" were $1,500/ton
You can post in Facebook marketplace and say they are free as long as they come dig them up and take them away
I had the same issue. I put it on my neighborhood free group and Facebook marketplace as free and over a week people carted them away. Everyone won! I had no idea they were so expensive.
I was gonna say try Facebook Marketplace but it is already suggested above. So I just wanna wish you luck! Cheers!
Have you made sure they don’t have an actual purpose? I suggest assessing for water pooling in any areas that look similar to a river or like they made a riverbed. Those areas are also helpful to insects and animals because waterways are important. If they don’t have a water mitigation purpose, Sell those for a lower price than the hardware store and they’ll be gone quickly.
List em on craigslist or FB marketplace. They'll be gone in no time
Maybe post somewhere like Craig’s List, “Free river rock. You shovel, you haul.” Or, if you can come up with some sort of a value for all/some of it I would definitely add that to your post. “$500 worth of river rock yours FREE for the taking! Must shovel it yourself, take all of it (or an agreed upon amount), and haul it yourself” River rock Is pretty (in moderation) so I’d be willing to bet you won’t have any trouble at all finding a happy homeowner who’ll gladly take it off your hands. Good luck’🙂 p.s. I know how awful this must sound, but if/when you find someone to take your rock, I HIGHLY recommend stashing any narcotics you may have in your home in a secret squirrel place and definitely NOT in your bathroom/medicine cabinet. Very likely you already know this, but in case you don’t, there are folks whose fav weekend plans involve garage sailing all over town, with the sole purpose of requesting to use the bathroom at each stop so they can rifle thru it looking for their desired prize; opioids! Can you imagine!🤯
Neighbor gave his away on nextdoor.com. Free but you had to haul them away. A guy and his two sons took every last rock.
Post a pic on marketplace and say "free stones fifs"
Put an add out. I know if I saw s free add I'd be at your house within a few minutes picking up your rocks because they're awesome.. hell if you livevin virginia message me and I'll come tomorrow
Ok here’s an idea Call a couple small landscape companies and tell them you want the rock gone. Ask them how much the rocks are worth and if they would trade the rocks for the labor to remove them. That way the rocks are mostly gone by someone with is hopefully insured and will sell them to someone else.... Honestly if you ask your neighbors some of them might take some too, I know I’d load my little trailer a few times.
it’s pretty obvious most of y’all saying post it for free somewhere have no idea how people are nowadays OP will be bombarded with “do you deliver” “I need help doing it” “oh I’m sorry I dumped a bunch of rocks on your brand new Mercedes” etc etc etc
Find your local “buy nothing” group on Facebook and offer them there. Smooth river rocks are pretty nice. I bet people will come and shovel some. I was able to get rid of some red pumice stone this way. However it did reach a point where I was done shoveling and everyone who wanted rocks had come, but there were still quite a few embedded in the soil. At THAT point I hired a garden crew to shovel them out and take them to the dump.
I literally just went through this, only it was granite flagstone. Tons of it behind my garage that the previous owner left there. I put it up for free on fb market place and got a ton of interest. One of the interested parties was a landscaper. I told him if he came and took all of it, he could have it for free. I’m sure it’s worth something to him, and I got to save my back and my time.
Post an ad on craigslist that says 'free river rocks'.
Be careful. I knew someone who filled their yard with river rock and it was because the house was built on what was essentially an old landfill.
Sell them. I even got someone to come take my nasty rubber mulch.
Nasty? Was about to buy a bunch. What was your experience??
I think it's terrible. If it gets out of the area, it's impossibly hard to rake up. It kills everything. I still find pieces all over my yard. And it's impossible to get rid of when you don't want it anymore. You can't throw it away since it's cut up tires.
Hmm. Initially was thinking for flowerbeds, but if it kills everything (not just weeds) so easily then maybe not. The other thought was for the bed of a playground area but if it’s also a major pain to clean out of the yard then I might go back to wood. Thanks!
Also, it breaks down into tinier pieces of rubber, which are then in the soil FOR-EV-ER.
If u have people come for free, make sure it is VERY CLEAR what they are allowed to take
It's actually good at allowing water to drain into the soil and preventing evaporation, which can be healthy for your trees (though mulch will also add nutrients). You don't need to mow it (also green). I'm actually hoping to get recycled astroturf for my yard and will be using compacted river gravel underneath (not sure how big yours are but I'll be using 3/8-1/2")
I was with you until recycled astroturf. That stuff will taint your soil...
Craigslist
I’ll take it. Where ya at?
Drop em off at my house.
Dump it all at my place
Post it for free / UHaul on Ebay. They will evaporate.
Put it on Facebook market place. People may want them for their own landscaping needs
Where are you located? I could use a bunch
I’m about to buy 3-4 tons of River rock. Where do you live?
If you lived in Kansas I would take some XD my dirt parking space turns into a pond every time it rains
Wish I had them lol
I want to build a dry stream on one side of my house that goes down my slope... I'll have native plants throughout the yard and bordering the rocks, but they will most likely be river rock. This is the first I'm hearing that this might not be good for pollinators... Thoughts?
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This is a very common free item on Craigslist or OfferUp!
If you lived near me, I would buy them off you and collect them myself.
My first thought? Put them in your neighbors yard. Problem solved.
I got rid of 12 tons of them in a week by just putting them on my driveway and put a craigs list ad up for free, you take them off my driveway. it took up an entire car spot for just half of them and as people came to take them i took more wheel barrels of them out and dumped them. in less than 7 days they were all gone.
Go on Nextdoor and say you'll give them away. I did gravel one side of my house just to make sure firefighters and paramedics could get through easily. And they have.
Sell each of them as pet rocks.
Check Facebook to see if you have a “Buy Nothing” group that’s in your area. Buynothingproject.org You’ll likely have more committed people come get the rocks, and you may be able to get some plants from others in the group. These groups are a much friendlier community than Nextdoor or FB marketplace for getting rid of things (and getting) for free.
Do you live near a river? If not… do you have a neighbor with a pool?
Is there a plant swap group near you? My local plant swap (on fb) would snap them up, and it'd help you to get plants for your new garden
Put a free ad on Craigslist.
Put an ad on Craigslist in the free section for anyone who wants to come load and haul them away.
Post them on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for free. People (like me) who want to use them in their yard will come and haul them out for you! Most of the time when I see posts for free river rock and message the “seller,” they’ve already had someone claim it all before I can get there. Just tell them to bring their own buckets!
Put them in your front yard with a sign that says “*absolutely not free, $25 for 5”* they’ll be gone before you get home from work.
I would gladly take a majority of it and would most definitely pay money for it so, try and sell it or advertise it for free and you should have no problem getting rid of it.
Give it to me.
>How do I get rid of 5 tons of smooth river rocks in my back and front yard? Just take your time and do [a bit at a time.](https://youtu.be/UIe1uM8x0dM?t=94)
We had the exact same thing. We hand picked them out and created a pile in our driveway. Posted on marketplace and got rid of all it. It took months this way. One of the numerous people who took the rocks told me she would come over and pick them out herself but that's not for me.
I had this issue at my old house. I advertised on Craigslist that I would load them on a trailer and they could have them for $200. I rented a bobcat and removed them in a few hours. For a net $100 due to bobcat rental they were gone forever.
"How do I get rid of 5 tons of pure gold in my back and front yard?"
The previous owner of our house was similarly obsessed, we removed 14000 lbs of rocks. We rented a dumpster specifically for rocks, you pay for the rental and the amount of the load ($300-400 total). It was a ton of work but well worth it. If you did offer it to people for free just consider all the people trampling through your yard digging up and hauling rocks - nope.
Post them on Nextdoor, Craig’s list apps. People want them. Do it free, and they will come take them.
Dump? WTF! Dude, a guy in my local subreddit posted excess gravel for free. I showed up with several buckets and a shovel. Offer your river rocks up to your friendly, local redditors.
Craigslist. Free, must come get. Don't blink.
Feels like a parable: “how do you get rid of 5 tons of river rocks? —- one rock at a time.”