Free furniture near me

 

2. LoveJunk

LoveJunk is an online marketplace for junk removal and reuse. It connects people who wish to get rid of stuff with people, charities and businesses who can take it away. In other words, reusers (who collect things for free in order to reuse them) and licensed waste collectors (who charge to remove and dispose of stuff). As a result LoveJunk has loads of listings of reusable furniture and other bulky items that are available to collect for free.

Filter function

A nice feature of LoveJunk is that you can filter by location and category of item (eg. sofa, garden furniture, building material, appliances, tables, pianos).  So, for example, “sofas within 20 km of Croydon’.  Also, unlike most other reuse platforms, LoveJunk only focuses on larger, bulky items.  So you don’t need to scroll through lots of smaller, random bits and pieces.

How it works

In order to acquire things on LoveJunk you need to register with them as a Junk Reuser.  The process takes seconds (you just need a valid email account) and is free. Read how to register as a junk reuser here.  Note that you can browse items without registering.

If you see something you like, you can send an offer to the owner to collect it for free. Or, if you would like to ask some more questions first, you can chat to the owner securely via LoveJunk’s chat function without disclosing any personal info. If and when you’re happy to go ahead, you message the owner your preferred collection time (eg. “I can pick up on Saturday morning”). 

Having set yourself up as a LoveJunk ‘junk reuser’, you can use their app to receive up to the minute alerts whenever a new reusable item is listed in your area.  That way you won’t miss anything. These notifications are optional.  If you’re just casually looking, you can leave these notifications off.

 

 

 

3. Facebook marketplace

Facebook marketplace is Facebook’s place to buy and sell things from other people in your area. You will need a Facebook account to access their marketplace. Also, it helps to have a ‘complete’ profile (i.e. a profile picture, a bit of info about yourself, some friends etc) because messaging other users with a blank profile can come across as a bit dodgy!

Once your profile is ready, here’s how to find free furniture through Facebook marketplace:

View category ‘Free Stuff’ – after clicking onto the marketplace page, find the category ‘free stuff’. If Facebook doesn’t already have your general location, remember to enter your postcode and set the distance you are willing to travel. Similar to Gumtree, there’s no opportunity to refine the category more than ‘free stuff’, so you’ll have to just scroll. If there’s something specific you want, try the step below. 

 

Search for an item– use the search bar to look for a specific item, for example “armchair free”. Then modify the filters to a maximum price of ‘£0’. You should be aware that quite a lot of items (even with the title “[item] free” or with £0 price) are not for free. Sellers seem to use this as a trick, and then say in the description that the item is actually for sale. Unfortunately, this can waste quite a bit of time if you’re looking for something that is genuinely free. 

Message seller – if you find an item you like, you can message the seller through the listing.  

We still like Facebook Marketplace despite the disguised sellers, for the simple reason that it is very popular. In other words it has a lot of free furniture listed. Plus you can see people’s profiles before you meet them.

 

4. Facebook forums

Another channel to find free furniture on Facebook is through its forums, or Facebook groups. They are usually organised by area and have a variation of keywords in the title. You may have to do a bit of digging to find the one for your area and some groups have admins that approve requests to be a part of the group, which can sometimes take a few days. Once you’re a part of the group, you can see everything that is posted and post your own listings. 

 

Rules – usually there is a set of rules to follow or you will be banned from the group. In some cases, you are only allowed to comment on the post of an item. You can not directly message the person who posted. Often the rules include no money passing hands at all. Since the group is monitored by admins, almost all the listings are legitimate and you won’t find any hidden sellers. The number of items posted very much depends on the group, so it might be an idea to join more than one.

 

No filters – one disadvantage is that there are no filters available. However, you can use the search tool to look up keywords. On the other hand, the fact that these groups are monitored by admins is a big plus because any funny business gets flagged very quickly. 

 

 

5. Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a platform designed for neighbourhood groups where neighbours can connect easily and share info and stories. A bit like a big, better organised Facebook forum (except without those useful admins!).

To find free furniture, head for the ‘for sale & free’ section, apply the ‘free’ filter and select what category of item you want to see. Which makes it very quick and simple to find legitimate free listings. However, the amount of listings varies hugely, and depends on how active your neighbourhood group is and how many people are in it. Plus it’s focused on local sharing, so it’s hard for example to find out about a nice sofa in Birmingham, if you live in Milton Keynes!

In our experience, Nextdoor’s free listings are legitimately free. But since there are no admins to enforce this, you should still be careful and read the description of any item carefully. 

 

6. Freecycle

Freecycle is organised by town groups and is exclusively for giving and finding free items in your area. There is no app available so desktop access only (which can be a bit restricting if you want to look on the move). Despite this, the listings are legitimate and one bonus about Freecycle (plus it’s copies Freegle + Trashnothing) is that the groups are monitored by volunteer admins.

Once you are part of a town group, you can use the search bar to look for a specific item. Or use the “select a tag to filter” and type in ‘furniture’, for example. The number of items depends on your group. Luckily, you can join more than one group and search items in ‘all groups’ so as not to limit yourself. You can also set alerts to be sent to your email when items with your keywords are posted. But be careful that your inbox doesn’t become too full!  The notifications come thick and fast.

For our step-by-step guide to using it, see our Complete Guide to Freecycle.

 

7. Freegle

Freegle emerged as a UK only version of Freecycle. It works exactly the same (giving and receiving things for free) just on a different platform. Sign up is very fast and you search items by town group. There are no filter features nor a search option to find ‘free furniture’, so your only option is to scroll and see if there is anything that matches what you want. About half of the listings that appear are ‘Wanted’. They are a different colour and usually don’t have a picture and unfortunately there’s no option to filter them out. If you’re on the hunt for something this can be a bit annoying! We’ve included Freegle because the groups do tend to be quite popular and have on average a few thousand people as users. Whether they are active varies by region and town!

 

8. Trashnothing

Trashnothing is another way to find free furniture online that is similar to Freecycle and Freegle. Sign up is fast and you view items on Trashnothing from groups in your area. You can search for a specific item using the search feature. Trashnothing has quite a large proportion of ‘Wanted’ listings amongst the offers but luckily there is a filter to get rid of them. You can filter out reposts which is a useful feature. It’s not as user-friendly as Freecycle and Freegle. Since it shows listings from across different platforms and usually has at least a thousand users per town, we’ve included it for completeness.

 

 

9. Freeads

Freeads is a classified ads site that’s like a UK only version of Gumtree. And like Gumtree, it has a section for free stuff. For furniture, find the ‘second hand furniture and homeware’ category which lets you filter by location and distance. You can also set an alert for the filters you applied so you won’t miss any new items. The vast majority of listings are legitimate and decent quality. Plus you can see a snippet of the description so you can normally catch if the owner has disguised an item they’re actually selling. However, there aren’t many furniture listings compared with Gumtree. 

 

10. Shpock

Shpock is a marketplace and classified ads platform. You can browse Shpock without signing up but you need an account to make an offer on any of the listings. To find free furniture, search for “furniture” in the top search bar and set the maximum price to ‘£0’. Then set your location and the distance you’re willing to travel and browse the listings. We’ve included it for completeness but it’s another platform that’s not as popular as some. For example, we’ve found an average of 200 free furniture listings throughout the UK. 

Be careful, because – like facebook marketplace – there are sellers that post under the guise of ‘free’ but the description says otherwise. You can’t tell until you’ve clicked on the listing and read the description. Make sure you read thoroughly before making an offer, and double check when messaging the owner!

 

11. Preloved

Preloved is another classified ads site that we’ve included because it is a big name on the second hand scene. However, it’s “Freeloved”section is probably the least popular of all our recommendations.

It’s free to sign up but it takes a bit of time because you have to enter a bit more info than any of the other sites. After setting your location, the Freeloved section doesn’t necessarily show items that are close to you, but all over the country. For example, even if you enter a Greater Manchester address, listings appear from all over the place, including Scotland and Surrey. Also, the listings don’t seem to be as good quality as those listed on other sites like Nextdoor/ Facebook. You might like to try your luck but we’d recommend trying others first.

 

 

Tips on searching for free furniture near me

If you’re looking to find a good quality bargain, here’s a few top tips:

1. Search regularly and across several platforms: this ensures you get the broadest range of listings and also don’t get lost in the ‘white noise’ of alerts
2. Respond quickly to new listings – the faster response the more engaged the advertiser is likely to be. Plus there is a lot of truth in the old expression, the early bird catches the worm.
3. Ask for video footage where possible and more than 1 photo – this means you don’t waste time on an item that, once you turn up to see it in person, just isn’t what you were looking for
4. Check/ ask for dimensions to ensure it fits – measure the space you have for the item and make sure that the furniture will fit in it properly. This includes being able to get it through your front dor, up staircases etc.

 

Collection of free furniture – advice to keep safe

A few things to keep in mind when collecting your free item(s) so that you can stay safe and don’t end up with something you didn’t want!

• Never share personal details (including your home address) – use the in app messaging system to avoid having to share email or phone details. Bear in mind you have no idea who the person is that is giving their furniture item away. So it’s always best to be cautious.
• Go with a friend to collect, ideally in the daytime – definitely not a good idea to turn up at someone else home or property by yourself after dark.  Sadly the world is not always a safe space!
• Don’t be embarrassed to say no thanks if the item is not as described or photographed – it can be tricky sometimes when you arrive to see the furniture item in real life and it’s not quite what you expected. But at the end of the day, if you don’t like it, then don’t take it. After all, it’s you who is doing the collection, not the person looking to get rid of it.

 

Finally,

Thanks for reading! We hope you found this article about how to find free furniture near me useful. If you have any questions, drop us a message at [email protected].

If you like this, you might also like:

• Free Collection of Unwanted Furniture Guide – how to get your furniture collected for free, including recommended sites, top tips and more.
• Second Hand Sofa Guide – how and where to get a great second hand sofa
• Second Hand Garden Furniture – find and buy used garden furniture