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Second-hand goods perfectly acceptable

12/05/06

The modern British home is now filled with second-hand items, a new survey has revealed.

One in seven household possessions are collected from car boot sales, charity shops, internet auctions, antique shops and even rubbish tips, indicating that the stigma associated with second-hand goods is no longer so pervasive.

According to home insurance provider esure.com, just 14 per cent of people claim that they would be "very embarrassed" if they had to admit an item was second-hand, while an additional seven per cent would be "slightly embarrassed".

The vast majority would be more than content to tell their friends that an item had previously been owned by someone else.

Nikki Sellers, head of home insurance at esure.com, explains the change in mentality, commenting: "The rise in popularity of ebay and hobbies such as 'car booting' has led to a phenomenal transformation in what we buy for our homes and lengthened life spans of everyday objects as they are frequently passed from one owner to the next."

Small ornaments and other bric-a-brac, glassware, crockery and furniture are the most common household items to be recycled, while people still prefer to buy electrical items and white goods brand new.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of second-hand goods are acquired from family or friends, with 15.36 million homeowners claiming to recycle items in this manner, while an additional 10.6 million receive heirlooms and hand-me-downs.

More surprising is the fact that 740,000 people admit to rifling through rubbish tips and skips to find useful items, with women been particularly prone to collecting items this way.

Ms Sellers advises: "The majority of home contents insurance policies offer 'new for old' replacement cover, so when working out the value of your contents the key is to calculate the replacement value of items and forget about what was initially paid for them – if anything at all."