Eastern student Shane Reichart has furnished almost his entire house, down to the hook that hangs his jacket, with items he has found in the trash.

Reichart, a senior industrial technology major, regularly finds items discarded in dumpsters outside apartments, residence halls and a specific TV store, and repairs them.

Reichart made $600 after selling his finds at a yard sale last Saturday and Sunday.

Reichart was influenced to sell repaired items after furnishing his own home and repairing things for friends, such as a VCR a friend was told was unfixable without a high cost part. Reichart fixed it without the part.

Some of Reichart’s findings come from an autistic man who brings him items or tells him of locations in exchange for items Reichart has already repaired, which also urged Reichart to have a yard sale.

Reichart also finds items by driving around. He does not actually climb inside dumpsters, but looks for large items set beside or on top of them.

He noticed he found pretty good things so decided to start to bring more than just what he needed home.

“About June I realized I could make a profit out of it, trash to cash,” he said.

He said mostly cleaning items is the biggest thing. He just hoses it down and if it doesn’t work, he just throws it away. He has also fixed chairs just by replacing screws.

Reichart said he has already made about $200 before the sale and earned about $100 in the first couple hours, selling a bike, stereo and dresser.

“I think we are done with the townie rush (7 – 10 a.m.), but I can’t wait for the students to wake up because that’s who this is mostly for, and I don’t mind telling them where it’s from,” Reichart said at the yard sale. “It’s for college people waking up because this is college stuff and that’s where I got it from, so I’ll sell it back to them.”

Reichart made $500 the first day of the sale. He said all items were sold except for six and he plans on having another sale about the same time next year.

His roommates give him a hard time, but he has furnished his house with items he has found such as a full size bed, computer, TV and VCR.

“My roommate Matt gives me a hard time, but it’s all the stuff he uses,” Reichart said. “He benefits from it more than he doesn’t.”

Reichart said he has even found the bed his roommate sleeps on.

Reichart’s roommate, Matt Rennels, a senior journalism major, said, “I don’t really love it, it’s all over the house, but I have benefited from his findings. It’s always interesting to see what he’ll bring home.”

Rennels said he appreciates his roommates habit.

“It always keeps the house interesting,” Rennels said. “Especially when he brings home beer, which he has done like three times- sometimes it’s even cold.”

“Don’t try it at home unless you are good with electronics, have a lot of storage space and are shameless,” Reichart said. “Because people will yell at you when you are digging through their old VCR’s.”

Some of the more usual findings Reichart has encountered include a machete, a 1895 Transformer Train Kit in the proper packaging, the 1982-1983 Chi Delphia framed sorority composite picture and an old fashioned hairdresser’s blow drying salon chair.

“We rigged it (the chair) up so it plays music. We had it set up on default to play Michael Bolton, but you can play whatever you want,” Reichart said.

Reichart said he has sold Jackson Avenue Coffee an open sign he found.

Reichart’s brother, Todd Reichart, a junior computer science major, also helps with repairing findings.

Todd works on computer repair and Shane repairs everything else including furniture.

Todd said he has found two computer monitors with nothing wrong with them and Reichart said, “I have found a Sony Vaio desktop computer with Windows ’98, a burner drive and a reader drive, that is two drives, fully functioning, in a dumpster. It was literally in a dumpster… if he or she wants it, I am selling it and they can buy it back.”

Reichart said he often finds items still in original packaging, especially CDs.