I don't think he's mocking at all - the Pittsburgh scrapping culture is fascinating. (I've lived here for 20+ years now). I throw stuff on the curb all the time and like magic, it disappears before trash day. I've also picked up a bunch of stuff from neighbors - office chairs, desks, a really nice stash of PVC pipe I used to build a grey water system for my washing machine, etc. it's like a weird little no-internet freecycle. Everyone just knows it often works and goes along with it. There are people who focus on higher value items, people who grab metals, you name it
He certainly wasn’t when he wrote this, and I don’t see how you’d read this as mocking. He was a crust punk living in a squat, fixing it up with scrap lumber he salvaged from pallets. His financial position was not so different from the scrappers when writing this story.
