One Person's Trash, Another Person's Treasure

My dad's real estate company manages many rental properties. Sometimes the renters fail to pay their rent, and then things kind of get interesting. At some point in the process, the locks are changed and whatever property has been left behind is dragged out of the house and set on the curb. At that point, it becomes public property. So, when we went to pick up the kids today, my dad took us over to just such a place. It was totally trashed out, but it was completely full of things, some of them really nice things--a big screen tv, a very nice stereo system, a refrigerator, a couple of couches, a couple of beds, a car, etc. etc. We told my dad the things we were interested in and he put our name on them. What are people thinking? How can they just leave so much stuff behind? And this is far from an isolated incident. It apparently happens all the time. In fact, the piano we have in our home came from a very similar deal, where the people moved out and just left about half of what they owned. It's really unbelievable. But, I'm not complaining, because it works out well for us.