The things you can find in someone’s trash says a lot about them: receipts from where they shop, their preferred brand of toilet paper, or how often they order take-out. In particular, I want to focus on abandoned furniture; from the mattress you sleep on to the shelf you put your books on, furniture is something you assume will stay a permanent fixture in your home. However, for students living downtown, furniture is a hassle to purchase, to haul back from IKEA, and to store or get rid of at the end of the school year.  

Moving off-campus last September, I encountered new mattresses being thrown out on my street at the end of every month; in other words, the end of every lease. In my neighbourhood, there was a graffiti artist who would paint images of a sleepy dude overnight before the mattresses were picked up, giving the mattresses one final friend before their demise in a landfill or incinerator. My own abandoned mattress last year did not receive this treatment, instead it was left in the care of a friend of a roommate after many fruitless Facebook Marketplace attempts to sell it off.  

Now, back on the west coast riding out the pandemic, I have been an avid walker. Like the old grandmas in my suburb, I make it a point to enjoy and breathe in the fresh air, especially after the wildfires. Here in the suburbs, the furniture dispersed tells a different story. People in the suburbs are here for the long-haul, thus the furniture they grow out of is due to wear and tear or aging out, rather than the frantic post-exam abandonment of mattresses we see in Baldwin Village. Using some random film I had, I walked around and tried to capture as many items as I could. A few favourites that I took snapshots of include a white leather couch in the middle of a field, a child’s Little Tike Coupe parallel-parked in the lawn, and a pair of chairs that blend into their environment.