One mans rubbish is another mans treasure. Isn't it?

I'm not sure if it's a British thing, a civilised thing or a me thing but picking up and taking home things that are lying in the street obviously waiting for a refuse collector to come and take them isn't something I do. If it seems obvious to me that something has been abandoned and is left lying in the road, I tend to leave it that way.

If your thinking to yourself that it isn't the kind of thing that anyone does, read on, if you think its perfectly normal then you wont be a bit surprised by what I'm about to say.

Again I'm not sure it its just a thing of the people I've met in my time here but a lot of them seem to think it's ok to just pick up rubbish from the streets and take it home; I'm talking about bits of furniture, old sofas, chairs and stuff like that. At least that's all I've heard them talking about!
So far all the people who practise this scavenging are North American, that is to say American and Canadian.

Is it something that is popular in North America?

I know these aren't bad people and I have no problem with buying second hand goods but I still think its a bit odd to be walking home from work and to see a pile of rubbish outside someones house or a designated dumping point for a building and think that some of it would look good in my house, am I alone in thinking this?

Two work colleagues were discussing an item one of them had seen and recommended the other take a look and suggested she 'tag' it if she liked it, she even offered to help her carry it back to her apartment! Others have mentioned prime ground for good quality things in the past and it has also been mentioned in a positive light by a good few more.

As far as I'm aware stealing rubbish or things from skips, aside from being bizarre is illegal in the UK isn't it? Maybe that's why I don't have the urge for a bit of pavement shopping on my way home from the pub.

Please, I would love someone to confirm my sanity on this, are the rubbish stealers mad or am I just a bit snooty when it comes to putting rubbish, literally other peoples crap into my house?

One man's rubbish is another man's treasure my arse.