My girlfriend and I went out yesterday to steal love locks, then went to get some warm food and drinks afterwards (it was friggin' cold).

jan Ki | 奇 :nonbinary_flag:

@thedoctor @alice
well, time for you to start stealing love locks then. have fun o/

but seriously, this is just about putting your skills to the test and keeping a trophy. Nobody is going to miss any of these. If you leave a lock attached to a public fence, don't expect it to stay there

webhat

@pronounshe @thedoctor eventually the county cuts them away, because, with a few exceptions, they are a nuisance to maintaining the bridges. At some places in my town they affect the proper working of drawbridges. @alice is not stealing them, they're rescuing them

Ozzelot :runbsd:

@alice
love locks are really prime picking targets, now that i think about it from an outsider's perspective

notanowl

@alice ride those waves in life / seek them out and ride them all the way

Ozzelot :runbsd:

@thedoctor
They damage the things they're attached to in various ways (scratches, and when there's too many, good old gravity.) Janek Rubeš (YT: Honest Guide) had some videos on this being a problem in Prague, don't know if they're still up. But yeah, city maintenance and volunteers sometimes go in and just straight up cut the locks off.
@alice

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

@koalou that would be amazing!

I thought about getting a PO box in case anyone on Fedi wanted to send me cool locks to pick. I've had a few people do it so far.

Gonçalo Ribeiro

@alice what do you do with the locks? Just curious.

🅰🅻🅸🅲🅴 (🌈🦄)

@thedoctor plenty of places look the other way, but in most places it's technically a misdemeanor (either considered graffiti, abandoned property on public grounds, attaching a fixture to public infrastructure, etc).

I was sad that I was too late to save a bunch this time—the city destroyed them and repainted the structure, but some survived.

@djb

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@goncalor I post every couple months about it, but I'm building an interactive art installation that's an ode to lovers. I'm about ¼ done.

Anyia, melting girl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

@thedoctor @webhat @pronounshe @alice They can be hazardous if left unchecked. See e.g. https://time.com/2847633/pont-de-arts-bridge-paris/

Lou 🏳️‍⚧️

@alice I was half expecting you to say that they shouldn’t because there are already too many locks rusting out there 🤭

Jim Gardner

@lianna @alice Those locks are basically litter. There’s a spot here in central Edinburgh tourists have started doing it. You think they come back for those? You think we the people living here want tourists to be leaving cheap, rusting locks on our fencing?

lianna

@jimgar @alice Are you the kind of people to raze your lawn to a grand total of 1mm and secretly cut down their neighbour's bushes when they grow in size?

God forbid couples leave a heartfelt memorandum of their relationship on public infrastructure and come back 10 years later to relive the memories. The poor road maintenance companies must be protected from young couples!

Jim Gardner

@lianna @alice Look at my profile picture and banner. Your questions will answer themselves

hackbyte

Hrmkay ... i don't like it .. stealing love locks just because they're easy to grab? Sorry no ... don't like it...

But why the heck do you take the newest ones straight from this year?

Why not at least take older ones first?

Jim Gardner

@lianna @alice I bet you would. From your profile you sound like a really nice person I’m a huge fan of native meadows and try to convince everyone I know with a garden to do their bit.

On love locks, I don’t really like them in my city centre because of the wider context. So first of all, they’re being put on some pretty old fencing and railing, and it’s fencing for pedestrians (only) that protects us next to a very steep set of stairs. It’s a quaint place to put them if you’re a visitor, but as a resident who uses that staircase I want to know the fencing isn’t under strain. Secondly, tourism in Edinburgh fucking sucks. The city centre is super congested all year round now, and while I don’t have anything against any individual visitors, as a whole they are loud, slow, and just generally incredibly annoying when I’m trying to live my normal life. Those will be the people leaving the love locks. It’s sweet, sure, but if you’re putting a padlock on public infrastructure in a place you’re visiting, I don’t think you should be naive enough to believe it’s going to be there if you ever choose to come back. And let’s be real, many of those people never will be back!

Mags at Large

@alice Seems a bit nasty. Sorry.

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@jimgar
@lianna I'll add that the life of *almost* all of these locks (where I live) is measured in months at most before they rust into a little ball of tetanus risk. No one uses marine-grade locks, but they place them right over the salt water—in a city that rains like ⅓ of the year. So the bridge quickly becomes an ode to decay and less safe for the kids to cross, because there are rusty chunks of metal sticking out everywhere.

The city also comes by and destroys them.

I save what I can and preserve/restore them—eventually they'll all go in the local museum in a big installation to celebrate love and love locks.

(Sorry for being a dick)

the elder sea

@alice
Cities cut these off so regularly, especially in common locations. There is statistically no way a lock would be there ten years later.
@jimgar @lianna

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@hackbyte no, stealing them because the city will destroy them (if they don't become a rusty lump first—which only takes a couple months).

If I take them, they'll go in a museum (after being restored if needed).