a year ago...

...I started selling stuff on craigslist. I'm happy to announce that a year later we've gotten rid of nearly 100 things that were taking up room in our house. We are a bit richer in our pockets and definitely richer in space.

You have to have a certain amount of patience to deal with craigslist people. They are not always true to their word. It's not like eBay where you can give them a good or poor rating.

They don't always show up when they say they will, they don't always write back when they claim to be interested in an item and there are so many ill people...

As I recently emailed to one scammer "I have never met so many people (via email or otherwise) with more health afflictions than the people I deal with on Craigslist." That is so true. I have heard all the sob stories.

If everyone that emailed me really came to pick up and buy the items, I'd have twice the amount of stuff gone.

Initially I had just posted items without starting an account. But since it was becoming such a difficult thing to remember how much I was asking for an item when the ad expired (and I needed to re-post), I decided that opening an account was the better choice. When you open an account, it remembers everything - you just have to re-download the pictures when the post expires.

Craigslist is also a neat place to read some dramatic postings. Usually I will search under "re:" and then read how some people are rebuking other posters for asking for too many things for free or warning other people not to believe the post. Eh, it's something to do :D

We've given a lot of things away too. When we had the garage torn down, the contractor wanted to know if we would like to set aside any of the reusable material. We asked him to set aside all the wood that was still in good condition. We were thinking that we'd either give it to Habitat for Humanity or use some ourselves.

After the garage was torn down, there was so much wood that we decided to give it away on Craigslist. Of course when you are offering something for free, people come out of the woodwork (no pun intended). We had around 25 different people stating that they wanted the wood. I went through the list and responded to each person. We ended up giving it to two different people...and DIFFERENT is an understatement.
The first guy that I offered it to emailed saying that he lives in Armada and would use it on their goat or chicken shed. When he came out and looked at the wood, he was amazed at how nice the wood was. He said "they don't make that kind of wood any longer". He told me that he changed his mind, he would use the wood to make some furniture. After taking 1/2 the pile (because he didn't want to be greedy) he asked me if my husband and I like farm fresh eggs? I said YES! He came back a few hours later with 2 dozen eggs from his chickens! I thought that was awesome...and like I was in Little House on the Prairie :)

The second guy that came out was MUCH different. After speaking to him on the phone, I got the immediate impression that he was a bit of an overlord. The way he spoke to his wife was very demeaning.

They showed up and as I brought them to where the wood was located on the property, he asked me why are we building the garage? I told him that the previous garage was falling down and this is just a replacement. We continued to the wood pile and with one look; they were very disappointed.

I mentioned that the previous guy decided that he'd make furniture out of it. And with that, the guy looked at his wife and said "what do you think WE'RE gonna make out of it, dear?" in some weird mocking sort of way. I asked if he still wanted it because I had a very good response and many more people are interested. He said No, we'll take it. And with that he started picking up the pieces of wood and taking it to his truck. His wife went back in the truck to stay with the child that was sitting there. I went inside to get out of this guys way. A little while later, I hear some rather loud speaking and I go to investigate. This guy is loudly speaking to Jerome - I guess you could say he was yelling.

I found out later that Jerome came out and said "Be careful of the wood, there's still some nails in it". That's all he needed to say to the guy when he started telling Jerome that we shouldn't be building - that the poor people are going to rise up and steal everything from the rich people and that he should google "end game" and see what's going to happen in the near future.

My husband has no patience for people like this and he was trying to get away. The guy kept going on and on about how "the foreigners are stealing our money" how "there are death camps set up all over the United States" and the whole end of the world scenario. It was amazing. After Jerome asked him which foreigners he was talking about; you know, I'm a foreigner (and being told Rockefeller), Jerome told him to "Just pick up the rest of the wood and leave!". It was VERY strange and what a difference between the two people that came to pick up the wood.

So, I guess you need to be careful, but all in all, everyone that we did finally meet with (other than the wood guy) were all very nice and decent folk and so far, no one has asked for a refund.