Ojai Brocante

One of our neighbors in our 6-unit pod asked if I was interested in doing another garage sale with her again. This time, instead of just three of the 6 households as before, all 6 participated. One couple emptied their storage unit and cleared out their garage, so they had A LOT to sell/get-rid-of.

For us it was an opportunity to keep thinning down “stuff” that seemed to accumulate over a couple of years. It’s such a tendency to open a cupboard or storage area and shove items that one hasn’t used in ages in available space instead of donating it to charity. We didn’t have that much and what didn’t sell we gave away or dropped it off at the end of the day at a donation location.

The one item that everyone seemed to want to rid themselves of was the old CRT televisions they no longer used. We lined them up along the driveway down to the courtyard and put signs on them saying take me for free. Finally this fellow showed up in a van and loaded them all to break them down and recycle them for copper and parts. We all were so grateful to him for taking what I think was about 10 of them, we gave him pick of items that we had for sale to thank him.

Rope across the courtyard

Early birds 45 minutes before start!

If you’ve ever had a garage sale, you know that there are pros that always show up well before your publicized starting time to try and get the pick of the items to resell. We had a rope that we extended across the courtyard to hold them back. One of the photos shows the line-up. I loved the old geezer with the wooden staff. He blasted under the rope when Joe started to take it down, unable to wait a second longer.

We didn’t sell that much, but it was fun and good to clear out “stuff”.
As little did we know what was coming in our lives in a little more than a month.