About four years ago, my old washing machine broke down, and instead of calling the technician and repairing it for a long time, my wife and I decided to buy a new one. Accordingly, we advertised that the old one could simply be taken away for spare parts or for repairs. Free, pickup only.

Now guess how many of those who called or texted us were really ready to take it out themselves? One. In fact, the one who eventually got it. So this story by user u/Mastodon996 in the r/ChoosingBeggars community is so close to me. And not only me, most likely…

The author of the post once had to move his mother out of her apartment so he decided to do a handout of her old stuff

Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual image)

However, as the author reminisces, he almost immediately had to face numerous ‘choosing beggars’

Image credits: u/Mastodon996

Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/Mastodon996

Some people demanded the author deliver things to their places, claiming themselves carless and sick

Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual image)

Image credits: u/Mastodon996

The guy ended up calling trash haulers who took all the stuff for a decent fee, but did it without any further talks and threats

So, the Original Poster (OP) says that recently he had to move his mother out of her apartment, and she had so many old things that he had to literally give them away. Well, why not, as the author of the post reflects – just to do a good deed. But the problem is that there has been a veritable invasion of choosing beggars who would gladly take, say, a table or cupboard – only if the OP delivers it himself.

What particularly angers the original poster is that all these people who want to pick up things suddenly turn out to be absolutely carless, and besides, if some heavy thing is given away – a sofa, for example, then they immediately have a huge number of health problems that completely prevent them from carrying something heavier than their own conscience.

Moreover, when something has already found its new owner, then choosing beggars, as the OP reminisces, also sometimes have the audacity to resent that someone was ahead of them. And they even try to make the author of the post feel guilty – that he ‘made their kids cry’, as if the original poster should chase after the one to whom he just gave the desired item, take it away, and give it to those who ‘really’ need it. And, of course, deliver it on his own…

In the end, the OP was so fed up of dealing with people like this after several days that he first decided to charge some kind of symbolic fee for each item – just to weed out the weirdos, and when faced with an avalanche of accusations of greed, he took a completely Solomonic decision. He just called trash haulers, paid them – and a few hours later, the apartment was empty and clean. “And it was some of the best money I ever spent,” the author of the post admits.

Image credits: Tima Miroshnichrnko (not the actual image)

The most annoying thing is that choosing beggars meet us literally at every turn, no matter what we do and where we live. “Whenever I receive messages demanding that I do something for free, that amounts to my losing money. Asking me to ignore my commitments for a free phone call is effectively the same thing because I’d be harming my reputation. I have a firm policy when it comes to clients who expect me to drop everything and cater to them,” Rachel Wayne, an artist and art activist, writes in her blog on Medium. “I fire them, and I encourage you to do the same.”

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“Most likely, the roots of this issue go back to childhood – like almost any of our mental problems, by the way,” says Irina Matveeva, a psyhologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment on this story. “If even in childhood a kid understands that they can beg for something from adults or peers using begging or manipulation, then with age this develops very strongly.”

“And it’s not that in the situation described, the person who was late for the handout really believed that after their words about ‘crying kids’, the author of the post would change his mind and take the desired thing from another person. It’s just that the manipulator in this situation was upset, and decided to spoil the mood of the interlocutor too. Totally out of the blue. This is actually a big problem, and thorough therapy is required to cope with it. However, first one still needs to recognize the problem – after all, awareness, as you probably know, is the first step to healing,” Irina states.

People in the comments praised the author for this wise decision, regretting only not doing it this way themselves

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