I was told the trash guys would take a queen mattress and box, and a couch if there wasn’t a fold-out bed inside; no special pickup necessary. So I dragged said old items out of my garage and put them next to the cans and sure enough, the truck took them. The couch was about eight feet long, and each time they ran the compactor, another two foot chunk would shatter and splinter and the end sticking out of the truck would wiggle about. It was sort of gruesome, really – as though a shark attack victim was fighting back and losing.
I’d bought that bed new in 1992 for $150 and it was replaced just a few months ago; I certainly got my money’s worth out of it. The couch needed a slipcover to hide the fact that its front legs were just bits of 2×4 and some former owner’s cats had destroyed the arms, but it was reasonably comfy and long enough for me to stretch out on, which is not a common trait of most modern couches. It was also free to us, which means we’d really, really gotten our money’s worth. I’m not that good at getting rid of stuff anyway, and it idiotically seemed like an undignified end to such useful items. But I have to admit it was cool being able to just throw out something so large it took the great blue shark five whole bites to eat.