LA's Curb Culture

You know it's the end of the month when rotting sofas, teetering stacks of broken down Ikea book shelves, and putrid mattresses start to collect on curbs throughout the city. Unfortunately when a renter's lease is up they are not always responsible enough to cart this trash elsewhere or to simply call The Los Angeles sanitation department to haul it away.

These eyesores have gained kitsch appeal with the new LA-based blog, Abandoned Couches. Totally Unauthorized blog author Peggy Archer spun off the new site from her "Couch of the Day" feature after an overwhelming response from readers.

Archer encourages readers to contribute to the blog, so what are you waiting for? Her suggestions for contributions:

1)"Couches should actually be abandoned. While it’s amusing to see that someone’s put the living room set in the front yard, if that furniture’s still in use, it doesn’t count."

2)" No trespassing onto private property (hey, I live in an area were security gets called if I stand in someone’s front yard. You might have better luck where you are)."

3)"If there’s a homeless person sleeping on the couch, come back later and give him or her some privacy. There but for the grace of… you know the rest (This one is a VERY STRONG suggestion - to the point that this or a paragraph full of racial slurs will be just about the only things that’ll cause me to delete your post)."

4)"Give a brief description of where the couch is, and if possible, show a bit of the neighborhood!"

Do you love chairs more than couches? You're not alone. Over 1,000 flickr members confess their love in League of the Empty Chair. Also, check out Abandoned Chairs, a photo book set to publish later this year in Britain.