Junk Raiders
Junk Raiders is a Canadian reality television series that debuted in 2009 on The Discovery Channel and ION Life. The series follows the titular Junk Raiders, a team of professionals who attempt to renovate a designated space over a short period of time, and with a relatively low budget. Because of the extremely limited budgets, many of the materials needed must be found by freecycling: finding something unwanted for free and reusing it. For the production of the series, the team had commissioned a "junk hot-line", urging Torontonians to donate any garbage that they could use. In  addition, as looking through other peoples' trash is illegal in Toronto, the show also has a special exemption that allows the team to do just that. Seasons. The first season of "Junk Raiders" aired in 2009 and followed a seven-member team as they attempted to renovate an old steel factory in downtown Toronto and turn it into a high-end loft in one month with only a C$5500 budget. In the second season, of 2011, the team was expanded to eight members, and the task was to renovate a site in Toronto's Don Valley (on Bayview Avenue ), converting it to a two-story "clubhouse" in one month with only a C$5000 budget, as part of the Evergreen Brick Works project. The third season, from 2012, had eight professionals attempting to renovate an old sports bar into a modern restaurant in one month with only a C$5000 budget. Team members. In the first season, the team must also answer to Ron Smith, the landlord of their building site. At the end of each episode, Ron arrives and has a face-to-face meeting with Geoff and Geoff alone, and, as the client, may order the removal  of anything that does not meet his standards, up to and including stopping the freecycling experiment entirely. In the second season, the client is Evergreen, a nonprofit organization in charge of the Brick Works project, a massive restoration project eight years in the making. Representing them is Martin Leifhebber, their architect, and Matthew Cohen, their senior project manager. In the third season, the client is Darcy MacDonnell, the general manager of some of the fanciest restaurants in Toronto. In addition to the incredible pressure of finishing the renovation to his standards, he also wants the restaurant to be ready for  opening night, and wants his new restaurant's first impression to be a good one.