Taking a peek inside a skip can be like opening a treasure chest. You never know what you’ll find! Here are a few of the most memorable items found by both domestic and commercial waste management companies.
What’s in your skip?
Whether it’s discarded furniture, outdated appliances, or even the occasional oddity, skips can be an interesting place to explore and uncover hidden gems.
It may come as a surprise to people, but although skips are usually a place where people throw their waste and unwanted items, some rare and unusual things have often been found in skips all over the world.
Whilst the AKS Skip Hire team may not have found anything too unusual in skips across Norwich, here are some of the weird and wonderful things others have found over the years.
Famous artwork
In 2011, several pieces of artwork were stolen in a heist of the Paris Musée d’Art Moderne. In an ironic turn of events, the artwork was found in a nearby skip when the thieves suddenly got cold feet about their crime and tossed the masterpieces.
Unfortunately for both the thieves and art history, the pieces of modern art were worth approximately £100 million. Not only did the thieves miss out on a fortune and face decades of prison time — but the wonderful artwork was destroyed for nothing!
A coffin
On a slightly more morbid note, a coffin was once found in a skip in 2007. A coffin in a skip is certainly one of the stranger items people have chosen to fly tip. Thankfully, it was empty, but the police never found who the coffin actually belonged to.
Whatever the story behind this rogue coffin, it certainly reaches the top of the list when it comes to weird items thrown in a skip.
A rare motorbike
This one may come as a shock to some automotive enthusiasts, but a very old and rare motorbike was one of the wonderful items discarded in a skip.
The vintage motorbike was found in 2007 and returned to its original owner, who had lost it in an administration error during the 1960s. The motorbike itself is an incredibly rare vehicle, one of only 65 exclusive models made in the 1930s. Such rare motorbikes have been known to fetch £350,000 at auction nowadays.
A wedding dress
Gertrude Bloye tied the knot with her husband in Plymouth during the 1930s, and on the big day, she wore a silk dress she bought from Dingles. The couple did not have any children, and their heirlooms were passed down over the years to various family members.
Sadly, the dress ended up in ungrateful hands, and it was tossed in a skip in Australia. The dress was put up for sale and snapped up by a bride-to-be, who has since donated it to an exhibition.
A caravan
If you’re looking for a measure of what not to put into your skip, then a caravan is one of them. In this particular case, the entire caravan was placed on top of the skip – the fly-tippers did not even attempt to break the caravan down at all.
The huge 1.5-tonne vehicle was dumped in a skip in Newport — waste disposal teams were confused as to how the perpetrators got the caravan onto the skip in the first place. It cost them a lot of time and money to dismantle and dispose of the caravan properly themselves.
AKS Skip Hire services in Norwich
If you live around Norwich and need skip hire services, look no further than AKS. Whether you’re having a general clearout or have specific items to dispose of, we can help you find the right waste management solution. Take a look at our skip hire options, or feel free to get in touch with any questions.