Going, going, not gone: My month-long struggle to give away a free couch

This is a little story about trying to give away a humble couch. A white couch. In pretty good nick. At no charge. F-R-E-E.

You’d think it would be easy. Maybe a bit like one of those Gainsville furniture ads, where a glamorous woman in an inappropriate evening gown sprawls across a two-seater then races out the door.

But this wasn’t like that. For starters, I was wearing trackies, and the entire giveaway mission was conducted via a local “free stuff” Facebook group.

As anyone who’s ever used one of these groups, or websites such as Gumtree or Ziilch, knows, they can be a treasure trove for finding, or getting rid of, everything from a mattress to a microwave, without adding to the world’s landfill problem. These sites also seem to produce some of the flakiest freebie hunters going around.

Our giveaway began when a third housemate joined our not-so-humble rental abode down the coast. Before he arrived, my friend and I had three living areas between us. Total couch count: five. Bum count: two.

So when the new bloke arrived with two more, it was clearly time to minimise. No one wants to live in an IKEA showroom, unless there’s free hot dogs.

The white couch was banished to the kitchen – excellent if you want to watch your flatmates cook dinner. But mostly, it was just in the way.

I naively offered to advertise the couch, which had been left there for an indeterminate period by a former resident. The ad went up, and the couch was snapped up quickly.

The lucky recipient was on her way, and we were looking forward to more floor space. Only one small problem: she’d forgotten to shift a child’s seat into the vehicle she’d been planning to drive over in. And she could hardly leave her beloved at home.

Three more attempts followed, with the universe conspiring against us at every turn. But mostly, she just couldn’t pin down a time. Life ain’t logistically easy, especially when there’s a free couch in the offing.

With fresh optimism, I hit the Facebook group again, hoping some silliness might up the ante. “Free to a good home: one couch. Does everything a couch is supposed to do.”

Instead, the appearance of this suspiciously white couch seemed to spark some existential dilemmas.

“I’m just interested…” wrote Amy. “How could you keep a couch so WHITE?”

Me: “No children.”

Amy: “Or pets. Yes, I’m sure there’s plenty of pluses of not having children. I don’t know what I was thinking – I ended up having five. No white couches for me in this lifetime.”

With an almost audible keyboard sigh, Melinda said she would have also loved it, “but probably not the best colour with two active puppies”.

Luckily, up popped Georgina! “I can pick up tomorrow! Hooray, let me check with my husband and what time I can make it, and I’ll PM you.”

Yes! Finally, this couch was going to bugger right off.

Back up the truck. The next day, a regretful Georgina reported her husband had “put the moz” on the idea. “I know there are some eager NILs, so please pass on (crying emoji).”

For the uninitiated, NIL stands for “next in line”. And that had already been claimed by a fella we’ll call Rhys.

Respecting standard etiquette, I tried to message him but he’d disappeared.

Instead up popped Rochelle, who’d already sent me a message and declared her affection for the couch with a heart emoji. Finally, a serious contender!

Two seconds later she was back: “I’d like this please if still available. Will pick up ASAP.”

Out of nowhere, Rhys rose from the dead, this time seemingly with a slightly snarky attitude. “So am I NIL?”

Oh my god. Would someone just take our couch?

But Rochelle says she’s coming. I said she’d want to make it snappy, sparking roughly 10,000 increasingly urgent messages.

She would come this afternoon. Her friend would help. Hang on, shit, his truck had broken down, or something. She’d be half an hour.

Maybe one more hour. On the waaaaaay. Hang about, still 15 away. A neighbour would help. They’d be there in 20 …

Finally, around 8.30pm, Rochelle was walking up our driveway! I know, because she texted me.

She had brought the friend along, and they had a trailer. Worried about backing it up our long driveway, they’d left it on the road in the pitch black, about 150 metres away.

Inwardly sighing, my new flatmate and I helped awkwardly shuffle it out, more than a month after I’d first tried to offload it.

“I was going to bring you some wine,” says Rochelle, who in fairness seemed lovely. (She also really liked the couch). “But I ran out of time.”

“Oh don’t be silly,” I say, before going inside, laughing hysterically and cracking a bottle. Next time, I think, I’m charging.