My sister had a couple of yard sales when she moved recently and we had to chase people off early. They were knocking on the door at least an hour early.
A friend of hers came by and described a woman to look out for as she's well known to steal at garage sales in the area. It wasn't 10 minutes before the woman showed up. My boyfriend was acting as "security" for the sale and he noticed she didn't come in with a purse. A few minutes later, she's getting ready to walk out the door and now she has a purse. He went up to her and asked if she had paid for the purse and she dropped it and said "I've decided I don't want it" and stomped out the door. We opened it up and it was stuffed with small items she had picked up in the house. Nothing valuable, just "stuff". Obviously here was someone with a mental problem.
My last garage sale was five years ago when I sold my house. I had advertised that I had antiques and the dealers showed up early and tried to lowball me on the items. One lady was incredibly rude and when I wouldn't go down on the prices said I had nothing but junk. You can always tell who are the dealers.....they show up very early, go through your stuff like a tornado, offer you ridiculously low prices and they're gone, gone, gone. You also have to watch out when a group of 5-6 "ladies" show up and a couple of them will distract you while the others pocket stuff. Or they'll tell your helper that they've paid you or tell you that they've paid your helper and not pay at all. Then you get the ones that'll quibble forever over a 10 cent item. "Can I have both of these for 10 cents? Will you take five cents?" I'm all for bargaining, but really?
On the other hand, sometimes you meet some great people and have a good time talking to them. Toward the end of my garage sale, a delightful old "country" gentleman showed up and asked me if I was interested in selling my extra car. He named a price that was more than I had even considered getting for it and took a wad of hundred dollar bills out of his pocket that would have choked an elephant and paid me on the spot. He said he just likes to buy a car every weekend and work on it. He sat around and chatted for a while, said he wouldn't turn a cold "Co-cola" down if I happened to have one and came back the next day for the car.
The most fun I've ever had at a garage sale was at the one we had when we were moving from Michigan. My late husband was sitting in the driveway playing his guitar when two elderly couples showed up. The two husbands were standing around listening to him while their wives were looking and asked if they could come back and play, too. They came back around an hour later with guitars and banjos and we had a bluegrass jam going on in the driveway. It turned out that one of them had actually toured with Bill Monroe many years before.
I've had two men almost come to blows over a chipped bowling ball I was selling for a quarter. I watched a little girl wanting a cute little kitchen set so bad she was enraptured. I even offered it to the mother for free and she said that the little girl didn't "need" it, even though the mother was buying a ton of junk for herself. Broke my heart....that child wanted that set so badly.
You'll see it all at a garage sale.
(so sorry and don't be mad at me for confirming the stereotype).
