Comments on: Yard sale adventures

By: Andy @ Retire at 40

Andy @ Retire at 40 — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:24:26 +0000

This post has been featured on the 89th Carnival of Money Stories at Retire at 40. Great article. Yes, the pros and cons of having a Yard Sale must be weighed up.

By: copyeditorsdesk

copyeditorsdesk — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:41:03 +0000

One never knows. In my neighborhood, it’s not a good idea to leave a car parked outside–though people do, because they use their garages as storage sheds or own more rolling stock than they can park in the garage. Around here, sooner or later a car left on a driveway or on the street in front of your house will be stolen or vandalized.

One neighbor jumped in his car, turned on the ignition, realized he’d forgotten to grab his coffee cup, left the engine running while ran back in the house, and darted outside to find someone had driven off in with the car in the time it took him to retrieve his coffee. Ah, middle America….

One issue Kathy’s comment brings up is that yard sales tend to bring people into the neighborhood that you might wish were not casing the joint. In my last house, we had a neighbor who ran an off-the-books business of collecting junk and yard-saling it. He would throw an event about once every three months, and since he was good at publicizing them, the whole street would be parked up for hours. Most people were very nice, except for the lady who let her kid crap all over my front sidewalk — as I stood there watching! — and the characters who looked suspiciously like gang-bangers.

I’m sure this is one reason some cities and HOAs ban yard sales.

By: kathy

kathy — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:43:45 +0000

Is a yard sale worth it? Here is another consideration. I gave up on yard sales after being vandalized the night after my last one. Did I somehow offend someone? Perhaps the lady who said as she drove by my yard, “Don’t sell that; I’ll be right back with the money.” A customer holding cash showed up just minutes later. What would you do? Next morning, our vehicle parked in the drive was damaged. Was the vandalism related to the yard sale? Don’t know. But I decided not to expose myself to the public in that way again.