Text 6356, 68 rader
Skriven 2006-10-10 08:48:22 av DAVE SACERDOTE (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DALE SHIPP
Ärende: Estate Clean-outs
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DSh>  Somehow, I had thought the estate sale was an auction -- 
DSh>  but from what you are saying, it sounds like you priced 
DSh>  things such as one would do at a flea sale or garage sale?

Our "get ridda stuff" strategy went several ways, actually.

With 80 years of accumulation, there was a lot of stuff in the house.
The best way to clean out an estate is to take a hard look at what's
there and classify it:

1. Items we wanted to keep.  Some of the furniture fit in here.
Our sectional couch is horrible, so we're keeping some of the
older living room furniture in the house until we have a chance
to shop for new stuff.  There were some kitchen items we decided
to keep as well.  Also, any repair materials (tools, house parts,
etc.) we found - including gardening equipment, etc. - were
keepers.  If I were cleaning out a house on contract, this 
category would be "Items the heirs want to keep," of course.

2. Specialty items.  There are always items that would not raise
a bit of interest at a live sale.  But collectors are interested
in some pretty esoteric things, if you can just connect with them.
That's what eBay is very good at, so a lot of stuff went up on 
eBay (and more is pending, but I''ve temporarily suspended all
my eBay activity until we get moved.)

3. Estate Sale stuff.  These are the things that people
come to the house to buy.  What we did was put everything we
intended to keep into a special locked room and then put a 
price ticket on everything else.  Items ranged from furniture
to nail clippers.  My mother was stationed on the second floor,
Maryanne was the monitor on the first floor, and I was the
cashier.  Only one door was open - in front - so everyone had
to come in and out past me.  (Some furniture on the second floor
sold, and because the back door lines up with the stairs, we
unlocked long enough to let the buyers bring stuff straight down 
and out without having to thread through the other items and
shoppers.)

4. Crap.  O, the crap we found!  From attic to basement, there
were mountains of crap.  My aunt was a packrat who saved even
broken/non-repairable items.  For the past six weeks, we put
at least 20 trash bags per week at the curb for regular pickup.
In addition, we stuffed Salvation Army collection boxes with
75 bags of clothing and shoes (yes, I counted.) Add to that
over 5000 pounds of bulky items I've trucked to the dump.
Now that the estate sale is over, I have another two truckloads
waiting for the dump (going bright and early tomorrow AM) and
another 30 (!!!) trash bags for the curb collection.

DSh>  If the woman wanted the article at a cheaper price, she 
DSh>  should have attempted to bicker -- standard practice I'm 
DSh>  told.   I'm surprised she thought she could get away with 
DSh>  swapping price tags.

I was open to haggling from the minute the sale started, and
we did a lot of wheeling and dealing.  I was, however, not a
bit surprised at the larceny since I've dealt with the public
like this a lot over the years.  Social mores - including
honesty - must be _taught_.  People are not inherently good,
and most people will cheat you in a heartbeat if they thought
they could get away with it.  (It's the people who attempt
it anyway who get caught.)

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Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, 
minutus carborata descendum pantorum
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