Unclaimed Cash on 'GMA:' Four Women Find Hidden Value in Junk Drawer Finds

Searching through your junk drawer could lead you to a big money payoff!

ByABC News
June 20, 2011, 9:16 AM

June 20, 2011 -- They exist in every home. Junk drawers filled with forgotten items we don't want to throw away, but don't quite know what to do with.

Junk drawers in American homes are estimated to house 15 billion unused gadgets, from cell phones to chargers to old computers and CDs.

The good news for Americans is that their clutter could be turned into cold-hard cash.

"GMA" hit the streets to help families clean up in more ways than one, making a surprise visit to four homes in Closter, N.J., to see how much money could be sitting in their drawers full of "junk."

How big were their payouts? You'll find out, but first, the junk drawer finds.

"GMA's" first stop was the home of Nita Moore, a music teacher, wife and mom whose family had managed to accrue an eclectic collection of junk drawers.

Found in Moore's stash were a drawer full of pins, a collection of singing ashtrays and multiple musical instruments.

"This is interesting junk," Moore told "GMA" of the finds even she had forgotten existed in her home.

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Up next was the busy home of Nancy Sapper, a mother of two young sons whose downstairs was a junk lover's paradise, with bins full of just the types of old electronics – blackberries, chargers and music and television equipment – that can go for big money on online trading sites like Craigslist and eBay.

The third stop on "GMA's" junk drawer tour was the front door of Jeanette Waters, another mother on the block who had also accrued a collection of "junk."

Found in Waters' home was a collection of keychains and two drawers full of instruction manuals for items her family had long gotten rid of.

Downstairs in Waters' home, however, was the real find: two junk drawers filled with 400 CDs that Waters admitted hadn't been played in more than four years.

"These are collecting dust," Watters told "GMA."

The fourth and final stop for the "GMA" "junk tour" was the front door of Kristen Schwartz who, it turns out, is an old gadget collector too.

The junk bins in her family room included old cell phones and VHS tapes that her family could not even view.

"I think we have it down there," Schwartz said of the family's unused VHS player. "But it's broken."