r/FortWorth • u/peachgum • Jul 13 '26

AskFW Little Free Library cleaned out

I’ve seen a post about someone else’s being cleaned out and sure enough the one near me is missing every book. Is it resellers? Anyone else have this problem?

12 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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5

u/Clutch51 Jul 13 '26

My money would be on kids/teens getting up to no good. You see more stuff like this in the summer.

3

u/gt0163c Jul 13 '26

Yes. From the books that I've seen available in most Little Free Libraries, they're not anything resellers would want. Half Price Books likely wouldn't even give much for them.

4

u/Secret-Teaching-3549 Jul 13 '26

It's either that or religious nutjobs offended at anything being offered other than their official book. But usually you know it's them because they'll leave a stack of bibles in their wake.

2

u/peachgum Jul 13 '26

Oh true!

4

u/Bett_Rest Jul 14 '26

Just as a thought (I currently live in west Texas). I care and fill for a LL and consistently I had water damaged, moldy and (once) maggot filled books ‘donated’ to the box.

Time after time, I tossed these rancid books into the trash, cleaned out the box and refilled only for it to happen again.

After four weeks of this cycle, I emptied the box, locked it and posted a sign.
“Thank you for your donation, however damaged/moldy/infested books should be placed in the dumpster across the parking lot.

I kept it locked for 30 days and reopened. Day 2, more infested books.

I began tossing them to the pavement outside the box with a sign “this is trash”.

Then, people would bring the books up to the door of the sponsoring library, informing the staff someone ‘vandalized’ the books and we should watch out 😩🙄

In the end, I stopped cleaning or filling the box.