Charity shops are well known for being excellent places to find some hidden gems when it comes to cheap clothing and homeware- however, as a charity shop worker has revealed in a recent interview with The Sun, not everything that gets donated is fit for the shelves.
The Secret Charity Shop Worker explains that she has “seen enough to make [her] skin crawl”, and are routinely given bags containing “without fail, a sex toy”.
“The number of used vibrators we’ve been ‘gifted’ is enormous – why? We clearly can’t sell them.”
The Secret Worker goes on to explain how inconvenient these donations are for the charity shop, as all of the workers are advised to wear gloves when rummaging through bags of donations.
The charity shop worker speculates that some people who just couldn’t be bothered going to the dump have just started upending “their dustbins into a black bin bag” and leaving them at the shop.
The issue has only gotten worse since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic last year as many dumps in the area have become appointment only in order to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Some of the donations left at the shop even contain old knives and broken glass, posing real danger to any charity workers trying to do some good.
But these donations don’t just pose a threat to the health and safety of the shop workers, they also cost the charity time and money to dispose of.
Other such horrifying donations that the charity has unwillingly come across include bags of “kinky dress up” gear and “a blow-up doll”, both of which- unsurprisingly- ended up in the bin.
Perhaps most disturbingly, however, are the bags containing dirty nappies and used condoms and sanitary products that people have- for a lack of a better word- donated to the charity shop.
And while this is probably shocking to most people who hear it, the charity worker assures us this is not a rare occurrence and happens “weekly”.
Although most of the time many of the donated bags contain little more than “old, stinky clothes”, people have even tried to leave off a bunch of out-of-date, moldy food.
The charity worker told The Sun how happy she and her coworkers are to receive bags of clean, ironed, and sellable clothes- but explains that such donations are not common and “few and far between”, and sometimes she would take piles of clothes home in her free time to wash, as there is no washing machine on site.
However, the nightmare doesn’t end there, as the shop is often targeted by shoplifters due to the fact that it’s understaffed and has poor security.
Someone even tried to steal a designer bag, and it would not be uncommon for a member of staff to be assaulted while working.
“And unfortunately violence is commonplace with colleagues being attacked, which is appalling.”
