The houseboat lives at a marina with other houseboats. (Think of it as a floating trailer park.) It seems to have some sort of homeowner association that maintains the docks, provides parking, hosts the mailboxes, etc. Anyway, out by the mailboxes is a shelf that is apparently called "the happy box." This is where people leave things they no longer want, and other people take them.
I think this is a fabulous idea. I hate wasting things that still have life in them, even though I no longer have any use for them. I've gone to great lengths at times to keep these things from immediately heading to landfills by finding them new homes. Leaving Paris was one such occasion. After my boss stiffed me on shipping home my belongings, and after I mailed home 6 boxes, and after I stuffed my suitcases to the gills, I still had 2-3 bags of things left over I just couldn't keep. So on a blazing hot day, while I was suffering from food poisoning, while I was running out of French money, and after my Metro card had expired, I began my quest to find someone who would want them. I went downstairs and headed west. First I encountered a homeless man. I asked if he wanted it, but he got scared and ran away. Then I encountered a fireman and asked where he thought I could donate it. Was there perhaps a Red Cross-type agency that would? There wasn't, but he thought a church might want it. In Paris there's a church about every three blocks, although in this neighborhood it seemed like a very long three blocks as I shlepped these heavily-laden bags increasingly lethargically from the heat and dehydration down the much-longer-than-I-remembered-it street. Eventually arriving at the church, the people there said, "Bless you. But we can't take it here," and then gave me confusing and incorrect directions to the arondissement's diocese that was completely inaccessible by mass transit and a half-mile away. With the last surge of energy that only obstinance can provide I eventually (after several wrong turns) reached the place. Where they haughtily took the bags with nary a thank you.
So the happy box is much better. People exchange everything: clothes, CDs, books, even furniture (one night there was a dresser, the next night there was a chair). If only there'd been a happy box when I was packing up... There are some definite advantages to living in a community of hippies, and I think this is one of them.