Karen Herzog of Johnson City, N.Y., in her unofficial role as the city’s trash "recycler," gathered quite a collection of other people’s castoffs, from typewriters to porcelain figurines to discarded bricks. What Herzog did not donate to the Salvation Army, she made use of around her house, according to the Associated Press.

However, her hobby did not sit well with her neighbors, who did not appreciate the heap of clutter in her yard and reported her for code violations. In May, Herzog was told in court that she would have to pay $79,000 unless she got rid of everything except a broken wicker chair and a flower pot. Now the garbage is gone, but Herzog says she is now considering reporting her neighbors for code violations.