September 8, 2026
The Curbside Treasure Hunt is this Saturday and Sunday — put it at the curb, label it FREE, and check the City's map
The City is running its Declutter and Discover! Curbside Treasure Hunt on Saturday September 12 and Sunday September 13, city-wide. It is the simplest thing on the fall calendar: put things you no longer want at the curb on your own property, label them FREE, and let neighbours take them.
Then go for a walk and see what everyone else put out.
If you took part in June's Parade of Garage Sales — thirty driveways across the hill — this is that without the float, the pricing, or the sitting in a lawn chair all afternoon hoping somebody wants your bread maker.
New this year: there is a map
The City has built an online map of participating addresses. You can browse it to plan a route, and you can put your own address on it so people looking for finds know to come down your street.
Add your items to the map here →
Putting yourself on the map is optional. Nothing about this event requires registration, a fee or a permit — the map just means a stranger three communities over knows your couch exists.
Signal Hill is a grid of crescents and cul-de-sacs, which is lovely to live on and terrible to browse at random. The map matters more here than it does in a neighbourhood laid out on a grid.
How it works
1. Look through the house for things in good, usable condition that somebody else could genuinely want. 2. Check it is safe to pass on. More on this below — there is a real list. 3. Put it at the curb on your own property, on the Saturday or the Sunday, with a FREE label. The City has a printable FREE poster if you would rather not make one, though a marker and a cereal box has never failed anybody. 4. Anyone can take it. That is the whole transaction. No money changes hands.
The rule that has teeth
Everything left over has to be off the curb by 5 PM on Sunday, September 13.
After that it stops being a treasure hunt and becomes illegal dumping under the Community Standards Bylaw, and it can be reported to 311. The City has said plainly that it will not come and pick up what is left.
So decide before Saturday where the leftovers are going, because the honest truth about a giveaway is that the best things go in the first two hours and the rest is still yours on Sunday afternoon.
These take donations, and it is worth a phone call first to check what they are currently accepting:
- Diabetes Canada
- Cerebral Palsy Association in Alberta
- Goodwill Alberta
- Kidney Clothes
- Calgary Drop-In Centre
- WINS (Women In Need Society)
What should not go out
Not everything is safe to hand on to a stranger, and some of it is illegal to pass on at all:
- Anything that could be carrying bed bugs. Upholstered furniture and mattresses are the usual culprits. If it has been in a room that had an issue, it goes in the bin, not on the curb.
- Toilets. The City calls these out specifically.
- Anything Health Canada lists as unsafe to give away — this catches recalled products, older cribs, drop-side cribs, baby walkers, and car seats past their expiry date. Health Canada's guide to second-hand products is the list to check against, and it is worth two minutes if you are about to put out anything for a baby.
A few practical notes
Put things out in the morning rather than the night before — the good stuff goes fast, and an overnight rain turns a generous gesture into a soggy pile you now have to deal with.
Take the FREE sign down when you are finished, or you will still be answering the door on Monday.
And if you are hunting rather than giving: bring a bag, look at the whole item before you load it in the car, and remember that the person who put it out is doing you a favour, not running a shop.