Hey y'all! Rebecca here. My mind is kind of a scrambled, jumbled mess, but I've been up working hard since 6am this morning so you'll have to forgive me. Garage sales are hard!
Even though sales are grueling, today's was so comical I wanted to share these few moments with you, even if they are just going to be listed out and not in a true blog format.
A little background: We are working the estate of a 77 year old man who passed away suddenly last December. He has a huge house filled with lots of nice things. Vintage electronics, tools, and German (his wife was German) items, to name a few-- very cool and interesting stuff. We've opened the whole house up for these sales and we have people wandering around looking at all of the treasures. Here are just a few pictures for reference:
We also had a camera crew at today's sale, nothing uncommon for us as we've done several pilots and sizzle reels for various TV projects and things, as well as the instructional videos for StorageTreasures.com (by the way, they are getting ready to release some of these videos again! You can find out more about it and see some of the videos here:
http://pro.storagetreasures.com/pro-training/ ) So, it's nothing unusual, but it's still always kind of cool to see our sales through the perspective of a cameraperson, so that made things a lot more entertaining for sure.
Also, the following things happened in no particular order:
1) A lady showed up in short booty shorts and five inch heels. She also spoke little English. Brian was very pleased! Aside from that, we had some return customers from yesterday who had purchased a $400 brand new in package with tags on it Croton watch for $50. They had picked out $30 worth of items and I basically gave them the $50 watch plus the other items for $60 total. Taking $20 off, right? I knew that was about the most I could get for that watch, and the guy seemed to generally like it, and it really was a fair deal. I explained the Croton brand and showed them all the paperwork, etc, etc. The guy said he liked it, they bought it, they paid. Today they show up saying basically that they "couldn't sell it" -- and I'm like, "what?", basically, piecing together that they tried to take it to a pawn shop and sell it saying it was real and the pawn shop said no thank you. 1) I said it was a real watch, not real gold. If it was real gold I wouldn't have sold a 3 ounce watch for $50. 2) There are no returns at garage sales and 3) and most importantly, do NOT try to "pick" us. You will not make a profit. We research EVERYTHING. They left, but not before they made it a point to try to steal another watch (of way lesser quality). It's a shame, because I truly liked them and really tried to give them a really good deal.
2) We had the other usual cast of nickle-and-dimers, including this obnoxious set of about 5 women who all spoke a different language that I did not recognize, only one spoke English and was translating back to the others, but everytime I'd say a price they'd all shake their heads no, so I'm wondering how much of that was an act versus how much was for real. The long and short of it was that they picked out about $10-12 worth of items, but then wanted 8, count them, 8 of our brand new with tags belts that we got from Macy's that literally are Steve Madden and Nine West and retail for $40-80 a piece, and I told them that we normally sell them on eBay and at sales for $5-15 each (truth), but because they had so many I would do $3 each (wholesale) and so it would be $24 for all, and then I'd give them the other $10-12 worth for $5. They hem-hawed about it, and what they had really wasn't that much (besides the belts), so then I was like, fine, give me $25 for everything. They still thought that was a bad deal (seriously?) so I reminded them that they were getting beyond wholesale on the belts plus everything else for free. They still kept hem-hawing, and finally I was like, look, Brian will be angry if he sees me selling these belts for that cheap, you have 5 seconds before he comes back in here and says no, you need to decide. 5..... 4..... 3..... 2.... let me just tell you, they had everything in their purses and the $25 in my hand before I got to one! They also took all 7 Diet Cokes, Sprites, and Waters that were on the counter, but I guess that's neither here nor there. Some people!
3) Our friend and wholesale customer showed up with his three small children. It's always a pleasure having him around, especially with the boys, and they made our day in more ways than one, especially in the following scenario. We had given the oldest boy (we'll call him Boy 1) a bunch of stuffed animals which he was sharing with his younger brothers. He also spotted a customer who had a child about his age, and he walked democratically up to the other boy and said "Here! Here's a toy for you." The other child (Boy 2) said nothing and ignored him. Because he was facing the other way, Boy 1 tapped Boy 2 gently on the shoulder, and said "I have this ___ name of toy___ here, you can have this one!" - At this point, Boy 2's mom (we'll call her Evanora, which you'd understand if you've seen the new Oz movie) turns and harshly says "he doesn't WANT it. We have plenty of toys at home!" For anyone to be so rude to anyone, especially a child, particularly a child who is trying to be kind to your child, is ridiculous. Just take the toy and throw it away later or hide it, for pete's sake. I expected Boy 1 to cry, pout, or run for his Daddy, after all he's only about 5, but he very calmly and politely looked up at the woman, and said very matter of factly, "That's nice, I have plenty of toys at home too!" - I couldn't have been prouder of the kid, and he's not even mine!
4) Speaking of the boys, there was a time at another point in the day when myself and the Director/Camera Guy were walking through a hallway dealing with tons of people and all of a sudden we heard a faucet running. We turned and looked into the open bathroom, only to see one of the boys peeing, pants around the ankles, into the toilet. Hilarious! At least it was in the toilet!
5) Speaking also of the bathroom (apparently all good things happen in garage sale bathrooms), when we arrived at this particular estate we were pleased to discover that there was running water and electricity, so we were thrilled that we had a bathroom if we needed one. There was no toilet paper, so we made sure to bring some, and Brian, being frugal as he is, took the toilet paper home with him despite my warnings that we would still be in the house a lot and may need it. Three separate occasions passed where either I needed it or a customer asked for it, and I finally decided that enough was enough and I'd grab some from my own home, which I did the other day, and put in the house so we'd be prepared for sale days. I apparently must be wasteful and wicked, because I guess I spend too much on toilet paper, buying a super amazing brand, or something, because today, I noticed when I was in the bathroom, that my 4-ply roll of Quilted Charmin had been replaced with a 1-ply roll of generic mart brand toilet paper. I tried to give Brian the benefit of the doubt and blame it on a customer, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. It didn't help that it had green icing from Brian's recent St. Patrick's Day Birthday cake ON the cardboard part of the toilet paper roll (when we had used it to wipe off our hands and faces). Busted. Who DOES that? So Brian, I hope you enjoy your one roll of MY 3-ply paper at your house!
Here's a picture, by the way, of Brian's birthday cake. I totally don't feel bad about it any more:
*If you want to know what we censored out above, ask us on
Facebook!
Until next time,
Storage Heroes
