Crazy Can Man Finally Raises Enough Money To Lease Apartment

Story by Bryce Wergin 

| Published Nov 11, 2008

Bernard King, more commonly known on the UNL campus as “the can man,” finally reached his goal last week. King has been collecting aluminum cans out of trash cans nearly every day since 1994.

He gets roughly $0.75 for each pound of aluminum cans he takes to the recyclers. It takes about 32 cans to add up to one pound.

Although he has been setting aside bits and pieces of his profits in order to pay for food and clothing, his goal has always been to raise enough to have his own apartment.

Last week, King signed a one-year lease with Collegepointe apartments for $565 a month for a one bedroom/bathroom apartment.

At this price, King must average about 24,107 cans a month to pay his rent.

“This is why it has taken me 14 years to find a place to live,” King said. “I have raised enough money to pay my rent all year, assuming my landlord will take the payment in quarters. Now I only have to find enough cans to pay for food and utilities. I chose to live in a complex near campus because that means there will be a steady flow of beer cans in the dumpsters. Score.”

Students familiar with “the can man” are happy for King’s accomplishment. “I’m glad collecting cans has finally paid off for him,” said junior news/editorial major Ashley Brown. “It is relieving that he won’t have to tough it out this winter.”

“I always thought he was just a drunk guy riding his bike around,” said senior business administration major Michael Sevcik.

“But when I found out he was surviving off of money from recycling cans, I was a little disturbed. If he really needed money, why didn’t he just ask his dad like everybody else? Or just ask his uncle or something to get him a job?”

King hopes to move up from renting to owning.

“With the housing market the way it is and the economy in the shits, I am going to try to keep raising money from cans and eventually own a condo or something. It’s a buyer’s market, baby. My timing couldn’t be better.”

King hopes that his financial success will enable him to meet women.

“If I keep this up, my popularity with women is going to blow up. What’s more attractive than a home-owner with a huge beard who smells like vodka?”