Break the box down before it goes out

Make it stop saying what it is. Many people say the same thing about a big branded box from a television, a computer, a console or a guitar: do not put it on the kerb whole. Break it down flat with the print facing in, bag it, shred it if you are the shredding sort, or take it straight to a recycling centre; one person waits until the last minute before the truck comes, so it sits in the open as briefly as possible. One person warns exactly this, for owners of new expensive electronics. One person adds the habit this page likes best, for a reason beyond burglars: tear off the delivery label before the box goes anywhere, because it carries your name and address and their worry is identity theft. One person says the whole question depends on where you live — some cities now collect recycling only from a bin, so a box never sits on a pavement at all and this page is moot for you. And one thing some people suggest that this page carries only as a warning: putting your boxes in a neighbour’s bin. People describe how that goes — a neighbour who tore the boxes up and threw them on the lawn, another who was simply stressed from work — and some people warn doing it without asking can end in damage or a row.

People split on exactly that, across many discussions, and this page gives both camps the floor below rather than picking one. The short version: some people say the risk is exaggerated — burglars pick houses by how easy they are to get into and how wealthy the street looks, not by reading bins — and some of them had their homes broken into for exactly this reason. One person who objects calls the whole idea an outdated anecdote from an era of chain emails, and the answer it gets is a person saying their family was burgled after a delivery box went out, silly as it sounds. People also argue whether the precaution is a valid measure or nonsense, and whether the box matters at all when the glow of a new television is visible from the street every night — one person says the window is the real leak and the cardboard is not. One person passes on an anecdote: that burglars look for the boxes, and may check the neighbouring houses if the expected box is missing from a target’s bin — which this page carries as one person’s story. People give their own decider, and it is the honest one: whether the thieves where you live are opportunists working from what is visible, or planners who do not need your bin. If you do not know, a flat box costs you five minutes, which is why the title says what it says.

Sometimes, and people argue this one across some discussions. Many people say an original box raises what you get when you sell the item on and makes moving it safer; some say keep it at least through the return window and the warranty period, and one adds that a maker’s own packaging protects the thing on its way back for repair; some say if you move often — one person is military — keep it, because movers charge extra for specialist packaging of televisions; and some say a box for a genuinely expensive instrument is a bigger flag to a thief than any electronics box. Against them: some people say a box four times the size of the television is dead space, that the resale bonus is small and fades, that flat storage is a pest risk, and that keeping every box is hoarding by another name. Warnings from the keep-it side themselves: cardboard degrades in hot or humid storage — some people name hot attics in coastal areas — one person says boxes attract ants, roaches and mice, and some people warn pests generally, and one says a flat-screen television has an orientation warning even in its box. The decider people give: how much room you have, and how likely you are to move or resell. People also argue keeping the television box for moving versus wrapping it in blankets, and whether the resale bump ever justifies the space — and one person moved a large television a long way in bubble wrap alone. If you keep it: one person flattens and files the boxes; one photographs receipts to the cloud so the paperwork is not the reason to keep the cardboard; one notes that students covered by a parent’s home insurance may need the box and receipt for a claim. Warnings for the selling side: some marketplaces prohibit selling empty boxes because of fraud, and one person warns buyers about listings that describe a console in the body of an advert for ‘a box’. And one person keeps them because the cat prefers it that way, which is as good a reason as any on this page.