Is this now acceptable neighbor behavior?

[CarlSpackler]

I'll preface this by saying these are my favorite neighbors and I have no problem with them or what they did. Now the behavior in question:

I live in a house in a middle class neighborhood. I'm pulling into my driveway after work the other day, and I notice an office chair placed on the curb in front of my neighbors' house. There is a piece of paper taped on said office chair, with the word 'FREE' written in black magic marker. I actually lol'd when I saw this.

When I leave for work the next morning, to my surprise, the office chair is gone. I'm like, "wow, someone actually picked that up and got themselves a free used office chair." That night as I'm leaving my house to go to the bar, of course I come across the remains of 1/2 of the office chair in the middle of the street a block up. While I'm no Sherlock Holmes, I suspect the skater kids who frequently roam the streets in front of my house, took the office chair, and had their fun with it.

So back to my original question. Is it now socially acceptable to leave unwanted items on the curb in front of your house, marking them as 'FREE' for anyone to take? For example, can I take the 10 year old computer tower and monitor that I have stuck in storage in my house, place them on the curb and mark them as free? I'm curious as to what others think.

[Ghazban]

People in Boston do this all the time.

[Dan.]

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People do this all the time.

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[traz]

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I do this all the time.

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[Dids]

V. standard, especially in college areas.

Two stories:

1- we have a part, we leave loveseat in garage. Hella beer is spilled on seat, it gets nasty, grows fungus and [censored]. We set it in front of house and it's gone within hours (standard). One roommate goes to party week later, realizes he's sitting on our loveseat.

2- Last week there's a couch sitting outside of this one apartment, they're selling it for $50 bucks. 2 hours later it's $25. Another 2 hours it's free.

[eviljeff]

seems totally fine to me unless the property is somehow a nuisance (smells or is a huge eyesore, etc.)

[JasonK]

One day while the wife and I were hanging out in our front yard some old dude from our neighborhood pulled up in front of our garbage can and retrieved the broken vacuum cleaner we tossed that was sticking out the top of the can. Didn't even look at us or say a word as he rummaged through our trash looking for goodies. Very strange.

[Capt. Busto]

Standard where I live, as long as the owner is willing to pick it up if it doesn't dissapear by the end of the day.

[nickg1532]

totally totally standard. it's actually quite odd to me that you haven't seen this before

[rjoefish]

I know a bunch of guys that would go around taking all the furniture and stuff left out (this is a college town so people just throw stuff out instead of moving it, perfectly usable) and then in August when all the people moved back in they would have a giant garage sale and make a few thousand bucks.