Our parking lot =/= cart return

[Jay 2K Winger]

I'm sure I've related this story before, but when I worked at the wholesale club, we'd get carts in from other stores all the time.

Stores we got carts from included:
Wally World (next door)
Yellow Tag (across the street)
Bullseye (next door)
Backwards R Toys (other side of Bullseye)
Little S Pet Store (far end of shopping center)

The best had to be a cart from our main competitor. Their carts, at the time, looked identical to ours, except it had their (old) name on the side instead of our name.

Competitor's store was at least two miles away, across TWO major roads in our area. There's no way it got to our lot simply by drifting from lot to lot. I always used to joke it was dropped in our lot by design, "to subvert our customers."

[Cymberleah]

Looking at the picture of the carts, and before reading the details of where they came from, I could see that they came from across the street, across the street... the two from the store over a mile away boggled me. I mean, I suppose it's not the worst walk, but are there even sidewalks all the way if you go the shorter route? I mean, when I lived there I walked to a lot of places, but from where you are to where that store is? Bus. That's a significant hike to make.

[Dreamstalker]

My store supposedly has those sensors on the cart wheels that lock up if they cross the yellow lines around (most of) the parking lot. Either people are wheeling them through the driveways (WHY isn't the entire lot boxed in?) or the sensors just plain Don't Work. Sheesh, I could build a LegoLogo doohickey that could stay within the lines. One CW who also works at a laundromat a few blocks down has found them around there, so people probably swipe them to cart laundry in.

We have a few carts from TJX hanging around...the nearest one is about a mile away.

[cashierbex]

My store has working sensors. People try to push the carts when they are locked and say they are broken and we tell em that its cause its locked. If the damn cart doesn't budge, why waste your energy? And its always the old people.

I have seen people come in with carts from Big Lots and Publix all the time. They barely fit through our aisles.

[XCashier]

I've always wondered how much it would cost to buy your own full sized shopping cart that I can take to and from the store with me.

Just get something like this to carry your groceries home in.

[bhskittykatt]

So today we returned the carts. Of course, it had to rain after it had been sunny all week.

Other MOD told me to walk around the property before loading up the carts. I told her I was going to save that until right before Hubby arrived with his truck because otherwise more would appear.
I told Hubs to arrive at 1pm. At 12:55, I walked around the lot, and found one small cart. I pushed it with the others. Hubby was late, and arrived at 1:15-ish. As we were loading up, Maint Man walked over another cart. I asked him where he found it, and he indicated the spot where I had just found one 20 minutes prior. Meaning I can't go 20 minutes here without another guest dumping another cart here!

The carts filled the 8-ft bed on Hubby's F250. Total was 6 small carts, 3 big plastic ones, and 2 "regular-sized" wire ones (that came from over a mile away). As we were driving across to unload the bulk of them, we passed a cop. We got a weird look from that cop, but he didn't bother us (presumably because he saw us pulling into the grocery store lot). Ugh, did I mention it was raining through all this? I feel damp now.

Why go through all the work of returning them rather than making the stores do it? I get paid for all this. I was on the clock, and I added the extra mileage to my expense report. Boom!

[Beckpatton]

There are signs at most of our chain supermarkets with a toll free number and promises of up to a $1000 reward for reports of the location of lost/stolen trolly's! I never understood how they could pay someone that much money for the return of a trolly that didn't cost that much to purchase in the first place!

I guess the thousand would be for cases like this, with multiple trollys at one location. If I were you I would definitely call the stores, or ask a manager next time you're in one, what they would like done with them. It's not your responsibility to return them!

[Shalom]

We also once had a cart from the automotive store across the boulevard from us... We had it for something like two or three weeks, and people were actually grabbing it to shop! One of our carts also managed to make it across the boulevard to the Ghetto Cat parking lot across the street...

I was at the Bullseye last night, which only has plastic wagons. Noticed one cart in the parking lot (actually in the grass past the parking lot) which was the same color, but made of metal wire. Cool, sez I, I didn't know the Bullseye ever used metal wagons.

I went down the hill and retrieved it. It was from the Bent Staple.

(There's one in the next mall over, which is connected to this one by a long driveway, so I could see it happening, but still, it's a long hike.)

Used it anyway, what the heck; I like heavier wagons, they ride smoother. I left it with all the other wagons that congregate in that end of the parking lot (no cart returns at that end).

[Seshat]

Find out the abandoned property laws in your state.
Find out what the carts would go for as scrap or to secondhand dealers.

Send letters (logged, with a copy of the letter in your files) to the relevant places asking them to come get their carts.

After the appropriate period of time, sell them as scrap/to dealers.

[wagegoth]

I second Seshat's advice.


I live in one of those neighborhoods. The local Big Lots will slowly dwindle down to two or three carts, then suddenly have piles again, so I assume that's when they send out the cart collectors into the neighborhood.

CVS has the carts that have a wheel that locks up if they try to leave the property, so only the most dedicated thieves try to take those.

[Maria]

After the appropriate period of time, sell them as scrap/to dealers.

The full-size wire ones are also very helpful for hauling sacks of lawn clippings, barrels of chicken feed, little brothers, and other bulky, annoying objects laying around your yard, if you don't want to sell them off. We've had ours for years, after the company decided it was easier to give us ownership, than to retrieve it or deal with the city code violation for leaving it abandoned in our yard. I was kind of peeved about that until I realized how much easier it makes laundry day!

[MoonCat]

Just get something like this to carry your groceries home in.

You have to watch out for those. I bought one a few years ago and the wheels fell off the first time I used it. The lugs or nuts or whatever you call 'em were plastic and apparently they couldn't handle the weight of my groceries I was pretty pissed, though.

A couple years ago I bought a cart from a guy at the county fair. Can't remember the company name, but it's made of heavy duty plastic (except the wheel parts are metal) and it has a canvas bag that you can remove to use the rest as a hand truck.

[pitmonkey]

In some places in seattle you cannot remove the carts from the property. Not sure how it's done but you see the signs at the exits.

[blas]

One of my brother's "bitch jobs" (he used to call them) when he worked at the big K was towards the end of his shift, he had to retrieve electric scooters that were stuck in snowpiles, and bring back shopping carts back to Dollar Tree and Pick N Save. The K was in a big shopping complex, there was no reason why all of these stray carts needed to be over at the K.

[Jack7957]

A couple years ago I bought a cart from a guy at the county fair. Can't remember the company name, but it's made of heavy duty plastic (except the wheel parts are metal) and it has a canvas bag that you can remove to use the rest as a hand truck.

My ex-wife had one of these....

VersaCart

We'd load it up to the top at the farmers market, it never had an issue with the weight.