Charity shop manager shows weirdest donations – including ‘unwashed underwear’

A manager revealed some of the most pointless items that are donated to charity shops – urging anyone who wants to help their shops to be more considerate in what they give

A charity shop manager has revealed the ‘most useless and bizarre’ donations that she has ever seen. These include everything from dirty underwear to clothes lived in by rodents.

Caitlin Brennan, 28, who runs Golden Oldies in Keynsham, Somerset, says over half of donations are mouldy or damaged. Items include a dirty frying pan, unwashed underwear, destroyed records, tracksuit bottoms with a tear across the crotch and a mouldy sweet necklace. She has taken her accounts to TikTok showing examples of poor-quality items charity shops are unable to sell. The account has gone viral – amounting over 130k views.

She said: “It’s bizarre. I have had a shoe full of seeds because something had been living in it and it had been eaten – it was like a ladies ankle boot.”

Ms Brennan, who also works part time at a recycling centre, says some of the discarded rubbish there is in better condition than what she sees at the charity shop.

She said that people bring damaged items to charity shops due to “laziness”. “They can’t be bothered to go to the tip.

“Some of the donations I get in the charity shop are worse than at the tip because at the tip people dispose of things properly. Whereas here they just give me everything that they should be taking to the tip.”

Ms Brennan says the charity remains grateful for donations, but is urging people to “think” before they make a donation. She said: “‘Would you be happy giving this to one of your friends?’

“Because if you are not happy to give this to one of your friends then it is not suitable to be selling it at the charity shop,” she added. “I’d like people to look into other areas of recycling, for instance things like prescription glasses – charity shops can’t do anything with those but Boots opticians can.

“But we end up being the middle man between all of these recycling avenues.” With the TikTok account she has been able to connect with other charity shops and understand that the same happens across the field.

She said: “We are all dealing with enormous amounts of waste and not enough help and volunteers and time in our hands. “I want my platform to help people know what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate.

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