Garage Sale Season is here - if you can find them
In the spirit of spring, we hit the majority of PiPress, Strib and Craiglisted Garage Sales last weekend.
This early in the season — with not a lot to pick from — you basically have to lay out the 15 sales between Shakopee and Lino Lakes and do a giant MapQuest trip with multiple stops.
After spending 4 hours traipsing across the city looking for sales that were either nonexistent, barely marked or not worth the trip, I have a few tips for everyone to make your sale easy to find (and thus profitable!) Read on…
1. Crosslist your garage sale in both papers, your community paper and especially Craigslist. Include your address and a phone number and a high-level cross section of items for sale (e.g. Antiques, baby clothes, records).
2. Create your own signs that are bigger than the tiny ones they sell at Menards. Don’t write your address on them. Just write Garage Sale and put a GIANT arrow on it. Seriously. Nobody can read your stupid address flying by at 25 mph. We just need an arrow.
3. Put up enough signs (with arrows) at enough intersections that there’s no possible way anyone could be lost. Don’t forget about the biggest sign, which should be in your front yard. I’ll turn around once thinking I’ve missed you, but I won’t turn around twice.
4. Don’t put balloons on your signs. They blow in front of the arrow and/or you can’t read them.
5. Wear a shirt. I don’t stop at garages with three shirtless dudes drinking beer sitting in lawn chairs manning a sale. For all I know, there’s a NASCAR race on and your garage is just a mess.
6. Parking - if you live in a location w/o adequate parking for 4-5 cars, please put up another sign that says where it’s okay to park.
7. For the love of God, take down your signs when your sale closes for the evening and/or put a sign in your yard that says you’re closed and when you’ll open again. There’s nothing more frustrating than following signs for 15 blocks only to find a closed garage door.
That’s it. Happy sale-ing. See you at the freebie box!
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Hey Greg - nice to hear from a fellow Garage saler like me. I typically don’t go too far out of my way for them, but will stop if it’s on the way to/from work.
Did I miss the big Star Trib. garage sale section or is that not out yet?