226
Stories about Storage Auctions / Re: Auction Scene #7...July, 2012
« on: July 09, 2012, 10:23:36 PM »
Go ahead and guess what this sold for...10 x 10 with a dismantled keyboard as well and maybe 6 totes.
I'm guessing around 2k to $2300!
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I'm guessing around 2k to $2300!
227
Craigslist / Re: Are CL buyers really nuts or what?
« on: July 09, 2012, 11:00:39 AM »
That was awesome! I bet he had a funny look on his face!
What I love is when you offer up a free bed or sofa on CL, and then they want to know if you'll deliver it......for free of course!
What I love is when you offer up a free bed or sofa on CL, and then they want to know if you'll deliver it......for free of course!
228
Craigslist / Re: CL iPad app
« on: July 09, 2012, 12:27:17 AM »
Just got a text from my friend a minute ago. He says that itunes just did an upgrade, and CL postings with pictures are working great again.
229
Garage Sales / Re: Held my first yard sale today in over a year......actually kind of fun!
« on: July 08, 2012, 11:54:22 AM »
Thanks guys! I'm glad there's somebody out there that enjoys what I have to say!
After two days, I ended up with $1157.00 in my pocket! That is after I paid my helper kid/translator $80 in cash and gave him a large brown sofa I really wanted to get rid of!
Having him really worked out for me, because the area I am in is largely Hispanic and a lot of them don't speak English. I don't speak any Spanish at all really, so it really made it a lot easier, plus it was nice to have help to unpack and move stuff around and keep things tidied up and restock the tables so it looked good.
Don't have any really good human interest stories from Saturday though. I did give away some stuff to a lot of kids.....they'd be playing with something and I gave away quite a few dolls, cars, books and toys.
I guess the coolest thing with the kids was this one kid in probably around fourth grade or so. His Mom was hard core shopping and he was totally bored. I was talking to him a little bit (because I was starting to get a little bored myself by this time!) and he started digging through a bag of stuff I had and found this big chunk of fools gold. He was fascinated by it and asked me what it was. I told him, and he thought it was so cool. They were probably there for another 15 minutes or so and he just kept looking at it. His mom finally came up to pay, and I told him to go ahead and take it. It made me feel good, because you could tell he was genuinely appreciative.
So, at the end of the day, I was getting ready to shut down. For the last hour or so, I was walking around and pulling things out that I want to keep to either put on ebay or just hang on to for a while. At about five, I had about 12 people still there and I told them that everything left....all the clothes, toys, dolls, books, everything there except my folding tables and my plastic totes, was FREE!
Some lady that had bought quite a bit of stuff from me yelled out something in Spanish, and it was crazy! My neighbor from a couple houses up started asking me about if this or that was free, and I told him EVERYTHING. So, I left it all out and took off to the Sprint Car Races for the mid season championships and fireworks show!
Now here I sit this morning. Looking outside into my front yard, I have almost nothing left to clean up. Any clothes that are left I'll dump into plastic garbage bags and save my totes for later. I've got one very small load for Goodwill (which is only a half mile from my house!).........best clean up ever!
Just to sum up the entire experience, I feel it was a great success, and not just money wise. I got rid of a lot of picked over inventory that has just been sitting around taking up space. I got to meet many of my neighbors for the first time, and may end up with a couple of new friendships out of the deal. I put a smile on a bunch of little kids faces, and got a lot of smiles and thank yous from kids and adults alike. So C'mon......I made money and friends, got rid of product and actually had fun doing it!........I'll take that any day!
After two days, I ended up with $1157.00 in my pocket! That is after I paid my helper kid/translator $80 in cash and gave him a large brown sofa I really wanted to get rid of!
Having him really worked out for me, because the area I am in is largely Hispanic and a lot of them don't speak English. I don't speak any Spanish at all really, so it really made it a lot easier, plus it was nice to have help to unpack and move stuff around and keep things tidied up and restock the tables so it looked good.
Don't have any really good human interest stories from Saturday though. I did give away some stuff to a lot of kids.....they'd be playing with something and I gave away quite a few dolls, cars, books and toys.
I guess the coolest thing with the kids was this one kid in probably around fourth grade or so. His Mom was hard core shopping and he was totally bored. I was talking to him a little bit (because I was starting to get a little bored myself by this time!) and he started digging through a bag of stuff I had and found this big chunk of fools gold. He was fascinated by it and asked me what it was. I told him, and he thought it was so cool. They were probably there for another 15 minutes or so and he just kept looking at it. His mom finally came up to pay, and I told him to go ahead and take it. It made me feel good, because you could tell he was genuinely appreciative.
So, at the end of the day, I was getting ready to shut down. For the last hour or so, I was walking around and pulling things out that I want to keep to either put on ebay or just hang on to for a while. At about five, I had about 12 people still there and I told them that everything left....all the clothes, toys, dolls, books, everything there except my folding tables and my plastic totes, was FREE!
Some lady that had bought quite a bit of stuff from me yelled out something in Spanish, and it was crazy! My neighbor from a couple houses up started asking me about if this or that was free, and I told him EVERYTHING. So, I left it all out and took off to the Sprint Car Races for the mid season championships and fireworks show!
Now here I sit this morning. Looking outside into my front yard, I have almost nothing left to clean up. Any clothes that are left I'll dump into plastic garbage bags and save my totes for later. I've got one very small load for Goodwill (which is only a half mile from my house!).........best clean up ever!
Just to sum up the entire experience, I feel it was a great success, and not just money wise. I got rid of a lot of picked over inventory that has just been sitting around taking up space. I got to meet many of my neighbors for the first time, and may end up with a couple of new friendships out of the deal. I put a smile on a bunch of little kids faces, and got a lot of smiles and thank yous from kids and adults alike. So C'mon......I made money and friends, got rid of product and actually had fun doing it!........I'll take that any day!
230
Craigslist / Re: CL iPad app
« on: July 07, 2012, 07:27:19 PM »And none of the postings have images.
And all flagged for removal. Why? Don't know.
Maybe they think you're using an Alias? LOL
I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard that since CL updated where you can post 8 pics in every ad, that it won't work with ipads and iphones. Anybody else hear about that problem?
231
Picker's Paradise / Picked an Auction House!
« on: July 06, 2012, 11:48:13 PM »
Long story.....lol.....but, I ended up with this pretty cool old document from 1922, signed by one president and one future president! Pretty sure it's real, came out of the estate of the guy on the form.
Guess you never know until you have it checked out, but I thought it was worth taking the risk. I just thought it was kind of cool and can keep it around.......if I end up making money off it later, all the better!
President Warren G. Harding, with the approval of congress, made Henry O'Malley of Washington, the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. It has the presidential seal, it's signed by Warren G. Harding (I hope!) and Herbert Hoover, who was the Secretary of Commerce at the time, but went on to become President himself eventually.
It's in an old, lacquered frame, and the document is in excellent condition. I just think it's cool!
Guess you never know until you have it checked out, but I thought it was worth taking the risk. I just thought it was kind of cool and can keep it around.......if I end up making money off it later, all the better!
President Warren G. Harding, with the approval of congress, made Henry O'Malley of Washington, the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. It has the presidential seal, it's signed by Warren G. Harding (I hope!) and Herbert Hoover, who was the Secretary of Commerce at the time, but went on to become President himself eventually.
It's in an old, lacquered frame, and the document is in excellent condition. I just think it's cool!
232
The Treasure Chest / Overlooked some Bling!
« on: July 06, 2012, 11:37:16 PM »
Bought locker two months ago....did a quick check, pulled personals and pics and got rid of a couple loads to Goodwill. Throw boxes in basement.....out of sight, out of mind! Setting up for garage sale yesterday.....find two fairly thick 14k chains and an earring!
Already made money on the locker from CL and ebay, did pretty fair at the garage sale and still have another day to go, and I'm thinking this should be good for another $450-$600! I love my job!
Already made money on the locker from CL and ebay, did pretty fair at the garage sale and still have another day to go, and I'm thinking this should be good for another $450-$600! I love my job!
233
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Public Storage does not seem to be having auctions
« on: July 06, 2012, 11:18:53 PM »
The Public Storage district up here sends out an email every January that lists all the auctions in WA and part of OR for the entire year. It's got a little calendar on it and it has all the storage facilities listed by their location code. Pretty handy. You can either enter all the dates in your phone or computer calendar, or keep a copy in your vehicle....I do all three!
You do have to go to one of the local Public Storage facilities and fill out a form to get on the email list. Also, the property managers do usually keep a few extra copies so you can stop by around mid month and pick up a list.....they pretty much do their auction runs somewhere between the 21st and the end of the month.
Of course, the Public Storage district in your area could be totally different, depending on upper management!
You do have to go to one of the local Public Storage facilities and fill out a form to get on the email list. Also, the property managers do usually keep a few extra copies so you can stop by around mid month and pick up a list.....they pretty much do their auction runs somewhere between the 21st and the end of the month.
Of course, the Public Storage district in your area could be totally different, depending on upper management!
234
Garage Sales / Held my first yard sale today in over a year......actually kind of fun!
« on: July 06, 2012, 10:46:19 PM »
So I have a bunch of stuff that has been sitting in my basement taking up space. Part of it is left over from a seamstress unit I bought a while back that is like the gift that keeps on giving and most of the rest was a locker I bought about two months ago from a facility about 1/2 mile from my house. I was in a big hurry at the time, so I pulled out a few good things for CL and ebay, and just stuffed the rest in the basement.
Finally, we got a weekend with some nice days forecast! Ran some ads and sorted through everything yesterday (found 2 x 14K Necklaces and a 14K big, fat earring, but that's another story) and got up early this morning and got it all set up and running by nine.
Of course the early birds showed up at about 7:15.......but in this case two things happened.........one is that I recruited the one guy to run the hand truck to move bunches of boxes out to the front yard (free Labor.... Hallelujah!) and between him and another guy, I had made $150 by the time I "opened" at 9:00!
It was an interesting and kind of fun day. I recruited my next door neighbor kid to help out. He's a 20 year old mexican/american and I got to advertise "se habla espanol" in my CL ad.....smart move on my part! Met a lot of interesting people today, actually had fun, and didn't really even have any jerks (knock on wood!)
Two things that happened stood out from today though. This one girl came by who was really nice but kind of mentally "challenged". She goes and picks out a dress and a couple little items and comes up to me and says something about just having a little bit of change, and digs through her pockets and pulls out .27! So then she starts talking about these tattoos that she just spent five bucks on getting them out of some vending machine. She pulls them out and starts laying them all out on the table. She makes two piles and she said she just really wanted to keep the three tattoos in the one pile, but I could have the ones in the other pile. I pulled out this big spider one, and told her I'd take her .27 and that tattoo for what she wanted. She said I could have them all and I told her that was good enough. So she walks over to her bike and puts her stuff up, and pulls out a little tiny baby garter snake and had to bring it over to show us. It was funny!
Anyway, as she's pulling away, I gave the tattoo to the neighbor kid's nephew who's about three, and we got it on his arm and the rest of the day he's walking up to anybody that came by and held his arm up and pointed at it. Cute little kid!
The other thing that happened could have potentially had an uncomfortable ending. This lady asks me if any of my stuff by chance came out of a storage unit. I said as a matter of fact, it did. It ended up being her daughters (well, before she didn't pay her bill and I bought it!) stuff!
She was really nice and bought a few things and started talking about how bummed out her daughter was that she lost all her pics and stuff. I remembered this one very well, and I remembered going through and boxing up about four big boxes of pictures and personal papers, and I know this facility has a special little room they hold all the personals in for up to a year. I told her to have her daughter get over and get it, because they were all there. And a weird thing.....when I was going through the stuff yesterday, I found a birth certificate and this really nice professionally done album. I almost threw it away, but I set it aside and had it stored downstairs.
I told her to hang on for a minute, and ran down and grabbed them and brought them up. I opened the book and it said "happy 54th b'day" with a picture of the lady I was talking to! I gave her that and the birth certificate and she was tearing up. She thought that was gone forever! Her kids had made her this really cool, bound like a book, with some family history and all the kids and grandkids pics in this thing for her b'day, and then her daughter didn't pay her storage bill and she lost it!
We had a nice little chat, and I made her day. I overlooked it (and the gold!) when I bought the unit and I was glad I hadn't tossed it.
All in all, pretty good day. I made just a hair under $600 bucks after paying my helper $70 for the days work. And there's still tomorrow.............
Finally, we got a weekend with some nice days forecast! Ran some ads and sorted through everything yesterday (found 2 x 14K Necklaces and a 14K big, fat earring, but that's another story) and got up early this morning and got it all set up and running by nine.
Of course the early birds showed up at about 7:15.......but in this case two things happened.........one is that I recruited the one guy to run the hand truck to move bunches of boxes out to the front yard (free Labor.... Hallelujah!) and between him and another guy, I had made $150 by the time I "opened" at 9:00!
It was an interesting and kind of fun day. I recruited my next door neighbor kid to help out. He's a 20 year old mexican/american and I got to advertise "se habla espanol" in my CL ad.....smart move on my part! Met a lot of interesting people today, actually had fun, and didn't really even have any jerks (knock on wood!)
Two things that happened stood out from today though. This one girl came by who was really nice but kind of mentally "challenged". She goes and picks out a dress and a couple little items and comes up to me and says something about just having a little bit of change, and digs through her pockets and pulls out .27! So then she starts talking about these tattoos that she just spent five bucks on getting them out of some vending machine. She pulls them out and starts laying them all out on the table. She makes two piles and she said she just really wanted to keep the three tattoos in the one pile, but I could have the ones in the other pile. I pulled out this big spider one, and told her I'd take her .27 and that tattoo for what she wanted. She said I could have them all and I told her that was good enough. So she walks over to her bike and puts her stuff up, and pulls out a little tiny baby garter snake and had to bring it over to show us. It was funny!
Anyway, as she's pulling away, I gave the tattoo to the neighbor kid's nephew who's about three, and we got it on his arm and the rest of the day he's walking up to anybody that came by and held his arm up and pointed at it. Cute little kid!
The other thing that happened could have potentially had an uncomfortable ending. This lady asks me if any of my stuff by chance came out of a storage unit. I said as a matter of fact, it did. It ended up being her daughters (well, before she didn't pay her bill and I bought it!) stuff!
She was really nice and bought a few things and started talking about how bummed out her daughter was that she lost all her pics and stuff. I remembered this one very well, and I remembered going through and boxing up about four big boxes of pictures and personal papers, and I know this facility has a special little room they hold all the personals in for up to a year. I told her to have her daughter get over and get it, because they were all there. And a weird thing.....when I was going through the stuff yesterday, I found a birth certificate and this really nice professionally done album. I almost threw it away, but I set it aside and had it stored downstairs.
I told her to hang on for a minute, and ran down and grabbed them and brought them up. I opened the book and it said "happy 54th b'day" with a picture of the lady I was talking to! I gave her that and the birth certificate and she was tearing up. She thought that was gone forever! Her kids had made her this really cool, bound like a book, with some family history and all the kids and grandkids pics in this thing for her b'day, and then her daughter didn't pay her storage bill and she lost it!
We had a nice little chat, and I made her day. I overlooked it (and the gold!) when I bought the unit and I was glad I hadn't tossed it.
All in all, pretty good day. I made just a hair under $600 bucks after paying my helper $70 for the days work. And there's still tomorrow.............
235
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: Clothes- how does everyone do?
« on: July 05, 2012, 11:08:31 PM »
I'm having a yard sale tomorrow and Saturday.....first one in a long time. Anyway, for some reason or another, I've ended up with a fairly large amount of name brand clothes.....way more than usual. Usually I pick out a couple of the nicest things and throw them on ebay, but this time I'm going to run them through the sale and see how they do. After that.......off to Goodwill......I'm tired of storing them!
236
General Storage Auction Talk / Re: I need advice on a certain situation
« on: June 30, 2012, 05:54:10 PM »Why not ask the storage facility to include your unit in their next auction? You might get a lot more for it that way than by trying to sell it off on your own.
That sounds like a really good idea........at least you would more than likely get your money.
Maybe this guy you found on CL turns out to be a really nice guy and you get your equipment and/or cash. But on the other hand, maybe he's one of the MANY CL SCAMMERS, and he picks through your stuff, takes all the good items, and all you get is stuck with back rental on a locker he fails to empty, along with a garbage bill!
237
Stories about Storage Auctions / Re: Auction Scene #6...June, 2012
« on: June 27, 2012, 10:20:28 PM »
Did one of the Public Storage runs yesterday. 40-50 people......and outrageous pricing! I can't believe how fast these guys are running up a total piece of crap unit to $500 and above!
Worst one I saw for the day.....10X20 with an old single shot break open .410 shotgun showing. Lot's of cloth (not microfiber, more like floral pattern) furniture, broken stuff, etc. Maybe a good $400 unit if a guy wanted to gamble......sold for $2300!
Anyway, while some of you guys are whining about the 100 degree heat, here's a picture that kind of sums up our summer so far!
Worst one I saw for the day.....10X20 with an old single shot break open .410 shotgun showing. Lot's of cloth (not microfiber, more like floral pattern) furniture, broken stuff, etc. Maybe a good $400 unit if a guy wanted to gamble......sold for $2300!
Anyway, while some of you guys are whining about the 100 degree heat, here's a picture that kind of sums up our summer so far!
238
Craigslist / Re: CL iPad app
« on: June 27, 2012, 11:21:02 AM »
Which craigslist app are you using? I have been using craigslist pro with no problems. I can list from my ipad or my razr max and it's unbelievable how quick and easy it is to use.
A friend of mine had his computer stolen a couple of months ago. He was trying to post his listings on cl with his ipad and I told him to try craigslist pro, and for the last couple of months now, he's posting all his ads on cl with just his ipad and it's been working great.
Oh, and I use the "free" craigslist pro......they do have a paid version that supposedly is a little fancier, but I'm a cheap bastard!
A friend of mine had his computer stolen a couple of months ago. He was trying to post his listings on cl with his ipad and I told him to try craigslist pro, and for the last couple of months now, he's posting all his ads on cl with just his ipad and it's been working great.
Oh, and I use the "free" craigslist pro......they do have a paid version that supposedly is a little fancier, but I'm a cheap bastard!
239
The Lounge / Re: Shipping by train
« on: June 05, 2012, 08:50:33 PM »
Something else most wouldn't think about.......Greyhound! I bought a custom painted golf cart body off ebay a few years back, and the guy had it shipped to the local Greyhound station. It took a little longer to get, but saved a ton of money in shipping!
I never thought of the train....thanks for the tip!
I never thought of the train....thanks for the tip!
240
The Lounge / Re: Scrap Metal/Recyclers!!!
« on: May 27, 2012, 02:14:41 PM »
If you have a business license and register with them, then you get paid immediately and don't have to wait. Scrapping is a nice little side job....did almost 20K with them last year!
They take refrigerators (but the refrigerant is supposed to be professionally removed first), electric motors, aluminum, stainless, cars, appliances, cast, etc. Just about anything but gold and silver......gotta go to Pacific Iron and Metal in Seattle for that.....
They take refrigerators (but the refrigerant is supposed to be professionally removed first), electric motors, aluminum, stainless, cars, appliances, cast, etc. Just about anything but gold and silver......gotta go to Pacific Iron and Metal in Seattle for that.....