A: Say "hand-me-down" really fast. No, hammydown has nothing to do with pigs.
A: One day we were looking for some unwated baby toys and discovered that
the specific toy we were looking for (stacking rings) was very difficult to find.
Either it was too far away, not free, or was possibly offered in
an email list, which didn't have a good way to search, see if the item was
taken, or find out exactly where in the neighborhood it was offered.
This service will allow you to get rid of stuff you no longer want or need; and
also allows you to find free stuff that others don't have any use for.
A: That's a great option for a lot of stuff, and is definitely encouraged. However, they won't take everything, they usually require you to drive to their location, some donation centers charge their customers for the items, and they may not have what you're looking for. Think of hammydown.org as a way to cut out the middleman, and find stuff more easily.
A: Your email address will never be distributed or sold. If you post an item, no one will ever see your email address. If you request an item, only the person offering the item will see your email address (so they can reply to you).
No - although it would be helpful if you did, that way people searching for an
item can get a better idea of where it's located. Note that your address will
never be displayed. When you enter a new item,
the position is slightly moved by a random amount from the actual address you enter,
so no one can ever tell the precise address of any item.
If you're uncomfortable entering your actual address, feel free to enter your
cross-street, or street, or even city/state or zipcode. However, the more precise
your address, the better, as it will more easily allow others to determine how
close the item is located to them.
A: Anything legal and tangible. Some good examples are old clothes, old magazines or cd's, extra tomatoes, spare wood, a broken clock, etc.
A: Anything illegal, or not tangible. For example - your old oxycontins, a friendship, a stolen moped, a web coupon for amazon.com, a song, enlightenment.
A: Not really. These other sites are either not geared specifically for "Freecycling", or they have an arguably more difficuly to use user interface (e.g., mailing lists). hammydown.org is currently the only site that we're aware of which is focused on Freecycling, and has an easy to use interface that features searching and geographical information with an easy to use map.
A: Out of our pockets. The costs are minimal, but if the bandwidth/space/cpu requirements become too great, we may resort to ads, or ask for donations.
A: We're working on several new features to make it easier to post, find, and communicate information about stuff on this site, so stay tuned. If there's something specifically you'd like to see, please email us at admin@hammydown.org and we'll see what we can do!