Piles of discarded belongings start to pop up in villages and townships across Antrim County around mid-May, and that’s about the time local scavengers start to look through them in search of valuables.
Locals call it the annual Spring Cleanup, when residents are encouraged to place anything they don’t want anymore on the side of the road.
“You never know what you’re gonna find ‘curbmarting,’” said Norma Jackson — that’s what she likes to call it.
She was on the side of M-88 just north of Bellaire inspecting a sizable swale filled with discarded belongings. “I’m just getting started this year,” she said. “I found a little Weber grill. We’re buying a trailer, so we’re looking for furnishings for that.”
The piles start out small and neat, but by the time cleanup day comes, some of them swell to 40 or 50 yards long. “I know a lot of people probably don’t like [the piles],” Jackson said. “But… I know a lot of people look forward to them too.”
There’s a lot to look forward to on the side of the road in Antrim County. Jackson went home with an accordion of all things. There were old tools, lawn furniture, electronics, vacuum cleaners, plumbing fixtures, rugs, and more.
One resident stuffed a pond liner into his Subaru Forester, another left his grandmother’s hundred year old pump organ on the side of the road. Anything of value was quickly snatched up by a steady stream of roadside opportunists who took the time to pull over and inspect what other people were throwing away.
A lot of the stuff, though, wasn’t useful to anybody. That’s where Rob Burkhart comes in. He’s in charge of cleaning up everything that doesn’t get picked up by scavengers. He’s been doing it for 15 years, so when it comes to stuff on the side of the road, Burkhart has seen it all.
“I’ve done this so long, it all becomes the same to me," he said. "You can see when there’s a divorce because they’ll have all the pictures in there, nicknacks… we see all kinds of stuff out here.”
Burkhart and his crew seemed to enjoy tossing all the leftover junk into the garbage truck. “We look forward to cleaning up our community and making it look good once again,” he said.
The culminating event for the annual Spring Cleanup is a 26 mile long garage sale. On June 14, on M-88 between Mancelona and Eastport, shoppers can peruse and purchase (at reasonable prices) all the stuff that was too good to leave in a pile on the side of the road.
