The book swap rule nobody follows at my apartment lobby

I manage the little free book shelf in my building's lobby in Cleveland, and I keep finding people leaving junk like old phone chargers and half-used candles on it. Last week I pulled out three chargers, a cracked picture frame, and a mustard packet from Wendys that was stuck to a paperback. The whole point is books, right? If you want to offload non-book stuff, that's what the monthly object swap table on the third floor is for. I ended up tossing more items than I added last month, maybe 15 things total, and it took me an hour to sort through everything. Has anyone else had to play janitor for their community swap spot, or is it just my building? What do you do when people clearly ignore the posted signs?

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1 Comment

sarah81823h ago

...so you spent a whole hour on the lobby shelf? I mean yeah, the mustard packet is gross and weird, but a couple chargers is hardly the end of the world. Feels like you're putting in a lot of free labor for something people are just gonna mess up again anyway.