I see abandoned cars regularly. 

In the recent housing/mortgage crisis, some people just moved out and stopped paying.

I've done neither.

I did recently drop my weedwacker off to get fixed.  I paid a $25 diagnostic fee when I dropped it off.  (which dude would apply to the repair had I opted to have it done).  Weedwacker was beat to shit. Dude called me with a price to fix, which was pretty close to cost for a new one.

So, I said no to the repair and that i'd come and pick it up.

Totally forgot about it until I found the claim check in my wallet.

Not going to bother now.

Can you fix an underwater mortgage?  Or a brownfield?

Left my Bentley on the side of the road.  Flat tire.

Make better decisions?

Every time we move I usually leave some good stuff on the curb so I don't have to take it.

This time I left my grill, trashcan, and a bunch of toys that I didn't feel like moving.

They were gone in 5 minutes.

In 1977 I moved to the Bay area in comifornia from South Dakota. I had a 1962 Impala SS convertible and the engine hatched one Friday after work while I was on the way home. I never went back and got it, instead I bought a new Datsun B210 the following Monday. I saw my convertible sit there for about 5 days before I suppose Cal-Trans towed it off and auctioned it. Kind of wish I still had it.

had a half acre of land in Nevada out in nowheresville great grandparents bought way back when

yearly taxes was like 150$ a year

parent passed away never having transferred the title into her name (just kept paying the taxes)

was going to cost a few thousand dollars plus lawyer fees to get it all straightened out and put in my name

decided to just not pay the taxes on it and abandon the property as it was worth less than the cost of getting the title fixed

back in November of 71, I jumped out of a plane and lost $1.1 mil

Does an ex-wife count? (no kids involved)

I left a POS car on the side of the road many years ago.

MIL house. When she passed she had a home equity loan that was worth about the same as the house. House needed alot of work and money to get it to the point we could sell it and make a few bucks. I would have had to do all the work, foot most of the costs and only got 1/4 of the profits. Told the wife's family I wasnt going to do that and they agreed. We let the bank have it back. Spent one weekend cleaning it out and winterizing it and walked away. The next spring the farmers next door built a huge hog farm in the field behind it a few hundred yards away. We never would have sold that house for what we had in it.

Yes.

I loaned a book to a friend of mine a few years ago and decided he could keep it.

I left a couple deer stands up on some property I had permission to hunt.  Moved away and never went back to take them down.

When I was a teenager I left a POS car on the side of the road after it threw a rod. 

Way back when, I drove $50.00 cars. If something expensive went wrong, I'd take the plates off and hitch hike home.

Last one was a '69 Volkswagon Beetle that blew an engine. The guy that stopped to give me a ride asked "...what I was going to do with my ride...?"

I said "If you get me even close to home, you can have it. Title is in the glove box".

He dropped me off at my door...

Yup, when moving or at the airport.

I once abandoned a piece of land, actually. It was a lot that I got with another lot in a subdivision, one of which I really wanted to build a spec house on and figured I'd just build two while we were at it because the developer gave us a great deal on both lots (basically two for the price of one discounted lot) since they were the last ones left and he wanted to be done (it was a small subdivision and it was his first one).

The first lot was fine--we built and sold a nice house. The second lot, however, was essentially not buildable thanks to the grade, a creek, and the shape of the lot. The neighbors didn't want to buy it, so I listed it for sale. It just wouldn't go, so after a few years I just quit paying taxes on it and let it get auctioned. It was in the next county, I'd already made my money on both lots through the sale of the spec house, and this all started in summer, 2007 as the bottom fell out of the credit market, followed of course by the crash of 2008.

That was my first spec house and many lessons were learned, so I chalked the money for that lot as "tuition" and have moved on with my life.

The strangest thing about that is, I have no regrets about just letting it go. In fact, finally making the decision to do so was a great relief, like a burden was lifted. I guess I didn't realize how much owning a worthless lot was bugging me.

I sort of did.
Truck I sold got impounded, towing company contacted me to come pick it up. I think the fees were abt $300. I told them to keep it, faxed them a copy of the liability release I had filed when I sold it, they never bothered me about it again.

Truck was a $500 beater that had a habit of just shutting off while you were driving.

Lots of abandoned boats around here. There's a nice sailboat aground about 200 yards from where I sit....got tagged at least a month ago and had already been there 2 months at that point.

Must be paying her well. 

I bailed on most everything I owned to split from my ex wife.

She was using me as a paycheck and partying with a couple of boyfriends.

Valued the loss once at around $50k.  Took me over 10 years to recover but was worth it.

Decades ago, at the tender age of ~22 IIRC, on my way to MN to get married and pulling homemade trailer...

After almost getting there, the differential gears in the rear end from some little English Ford or something, locked up..

I abandoned it along the road, taking the plate.

I had put the rear end in backasswards and it didn't get lubed properly, my new FIL told me.  I.e., the differential input shaft was facing the back.


After we were married, our honeymoon was spent going back and striping it of useful parts and put them in a little U-Haul I rented, and going back home.