Revealed: 10 weirdest things thrown out by house movers

Boroughbridge-based industrial shredding specialist UNTHA UK commissioned the YouGov poll to learn what people had previously got rid of when packing up their belongings and heading to a new home.

Some of the findings were so spooky that UNTHA UK published a list of “the 10 weirdest things people have thrown out when moving house”.

Animal-related items were among research participants’ admissions – taxidermy including a magpie and stuffed badger’s head, a yak jacket, and a scorpion in a glass cube.

There were artefacts from yesteryear too, including an old Morris Minor windscreen, an air-raid siren and 1970s bedside tea-maker.

But certain possessions stood out in the eyes of the UNTHA UK team. Childhood teeth and prosthetic body parts were stiff contenders, but top of the rundown was ‘human skull bones’, closely followed by a wearable dolphin tail.

Other belongings that made it onto the list included: a three-foot mermaid; a part-built steam engine; and a six-foot-tall cut-out of the rock band Kiss.

Commenting on the list, UNTHA UK’s managing director Marcus Brew said: “The UK population has gained something of a reputation for being a throwaway society – statistics show that, as a nation, we’re careless with our food waste for example, and we live in an era of constantly-evolving gadgets, which can render some perfectly-usable products redundant!

“This research goes to show however, that we actually hold on to a number of things that we perhaps wouldn’t want to admit we own! It made for really entertaining – and enlightening – reading, with much debate surrounding the strangest belongings from a very random list of potential front-runners!”