Behind Closed Doors Part Two

If you haven’t read part one of this entry, you can do so here. If you have read it, you know that my weekend of estate sales had started out rather interestingly. It is always memorable when you enter a particularly horrifying home. That said, nothing could have prepared me for the house Zach and I visited on Sunday.

The sale was listed as an emergency one day event. There was not a clear explanation of what the urgency was, but I assumed the house needed to be cleared out quickly so it could go up for sale. Sorry to say, however, this house won’t be on the market anytime in the near future.

When we walked in, I was astounded. “Shocking” is an understatement. This was the worst I had ever seen.

I hate using the phrase, “the pictures don’t even do it justice,” but it is true. They really do not begin to describe what it was like being in the house. You could not see the floor in any rooms except the bathroom and kitchen. It smelled. It was filthy. And it was really, really effing sad. There were TONS of children’s items.

It was just so, so awful. Zach left as soon as we walked in the house. I assume most people did.

My strategy for the sale was to completely ignore everything out in the open. I would literally skip whole rooms. My assumption was that most of the things on the floor had already been rummaged through, and if they weren’t, then they were most surely broken from people trampling all over them.

If an area wasn’t already searched or trampled, then it was full of porn that no one wanted.

So instead, I looked for areas of the house that had not been accessed. There were several crawlspaces upstairs, as well as parts of the basement completely blocked by debris.

The guy in the photo above could not fit completely into that crawlspace. When he moved out of the way, I climbed in and started moving boxes out of the way so I could get fully inside.

This old trunk was empty, which was a huge disappointment for all my effort.

I did find tons of boxes, however, that had not been touched in decades. A lot of it was cheap Christmas decorations. I found some baby shoes from the 1950s still in their original boxes and ended up buying them. I also found old games, practically new.

There were also old children’s records, which I later sold on ebay for $25.

In the basement, I moved some boxes and climbed under a giant table to access an area previously blocked.

This guy is like WTF are you doing.

My efforts paid off though because I found some neat jackets stored inside sealed garment bags. This meant that they were not completely filthy like everything else in the house.

Well, this shop jacket IS filthy, but at least not from the house itself.

I also found these old Detroit bank bags and a baseball for my dad.

The downfall in my strategy is that people started to notice, and would then try to follow me into crawlspaces or other tight areas. This was super stressful because I am claustrophobic and also did not want to share my finds. There was one lady at the sale who would snap at people who even glanced at her pile of items. In general, she was just being a loud bully. When she tried to climb into the crawlspace with me, I informed her that 1. there was no room, and 2. there were already people in line waiting to get in the crawlspace after me.

The bully explained that that’s “their problem” if they want to wait, and that she was “coming in.” NOPE. NO YOU ARE NOT, SALE BULLY. I told her that she needed to “cool her jets” (God, I am such a mom), and that I could tell she was very excited but that no, I was not letting her in with me. She was pissed but eventually gave up.

I just kept throwing things in bags I had found along the way. I had old Disney drinking glasses, old hotel barware, old McDonald’s cups, some Christmas garland from the 1950s, a baseball bank from the 70s that will go to Timmy, plus all the stuff you see above.

I paid $40 for everything, which turned out to be a steal. Most of the items have already sold on ebay.

So that’s it. Pretty remarkable if you ask me. You really never know what is behind closed doors, even in today’s overshare culture. And while interesting, I am hoping to avoid another sale like this for awhile.

-Erin