Dig This Treasure!

We were lucky enough to have TWO days of sale-ing this past week since Sarah was off on winter break from work.  Thursday morning we headed out to a pretty promising Detroit sale.  I say promising because it was advertised as being in Boston Edison neighborhood, which is crazy fancy.  I got to film at a mansion there last Spring and the home was seriously insane.

When we arrived at the sale, we noticed two things.  One, that we were nowhere near the Boston Edison neighborhood, and two, this bumper sticker:

It’s a little worn, but it says “PIMP PRIDE.”  Holla!

The yard of the house signaled the treasures that awaited us:

If your guess is that this house holds bounties of jewels and gold, you’re wrong.  If you think it might hold rooms and rooms of garbage, you are spot on.

It also held a crap-ton of mugs.

Here is a photo of Sarah looking through the mugs.  There were a lot of mugs she wanted but couldn’t buy.  For some ASININE reason, the mugs were all chained to each other and to the stand they were on.  Unless you brought your bolt cutters, these mugs were for display only.

Some lady passed by and made a joke about Detroit having a mug shortage and now we know why.  Har har har.

The mugs were only the first example of stockpiled items.  Everything in the house came in bulk.  Stacks of unopened charcoal, cleaning supplies, toaster ovens…

When we made it to the attic things started to make sense.  This person was TOTALLY GEARING UP FOR THE APOCALYPSE.  You need 80 toaster ovens because when the world ends, you can’t count on just one toaster oven.  And you need a LOT of ketchup:

If you don’t have anything to put the ketchup on, at least you have a thousand mugs you can pour ketchup into and drink.

And you can salt the ketchup beverage with all the salt you’ve saved:

I was seriously shocked by this house.  We’ve seen our fair share of crazy houses, but this took the cake thus far.  I started getting creeped out, like I was in an episode of The Walking Dead.  At one point, I was rummaging through a box in the attic and something fell out.  The noise of it hitting the ground scared me so bad that I screamed.

Here are some survival barrels we uncovered.  Government sanctioned of course:

This is not to say that we didn’t find ANY treasures.  I found a little brass turtle box that is crazy adorable.  I put him on ebay but am kind of regretting it.  

He already has 2 bids though, so there is no turning back.

I also found this terra cotta cooker.  I looked it up on ebay and they usually sell for between $20 and $30.  

I have it listed now on ebay. Here’s the thing though, I think I have to take the listing down.  I looked up online how to clean these things because it was all dusty.  I scrubbed it with baking soda and hot water, and then it started releasing this INSANE smell.  The filthiest dirt smell ever.  A smell so bad that Zach woke up from a nap and was like, “WHAT IS THAT???”  Anyway, I put the cooker inside a bag with a box of baking soda for two days.  It still smells.  It is now sitting on our back porch hopefully “airing out.”

I’ll keep you all updated if this thing suddenly starts smelling like roses.

-Erin 

Update from Sarah: Erin’s right. This sale was crazy. The quantity of mugs at it was out of control. I have no idea how, but I was able to get one of the crazy chained ones off one of the racks. I was desperately trying to get one with a confederate flag on it off the same rack, but I was not successful. Erin was really embarrassed that I was trying to get that one off the rack because the sale was being run by an African American family. Come on. I’m sure they’ve watched the Dukes of Hazzard. Also, it’s not like I was going to keep it! 

Anyway, here are the four mugs that I did buy. Adam loves the two old timey ones, and of course the Piston’s one. 

I really don’t need any mugs, but when has that ever stopped me? 

The other thing Erin didn’t mention about this sale was that when we got into the basement, there were even more mugs, along with an overwhelming chemical smell that immediately made both of us worry that we were being poisoned. We quickly left the basement. 

I purchased a couple of other items at this sale, including this silver-plated Snoopy bank from 1958. I thought Adam would like it but in retrospect, I should have realized it was sort of gross.

One other, cuter Peanuts-themed item (we’re big Peanuts fans over here) that I purchased: 

Unfortunately, Adam didn’t really like this that much either, but I think I do. I might put it in my office at work. 

Besides all of the tempting ketchup, salt, and instant coffee, here’s another thing we saw there that we didn’t buy: 

An old wheelchair that looks like something out of a Marilyn Manson video, carrying some broke ass lampshades. 

After this sale, we went to a sale in St. Claire Shores that we were really excited to go to, but it ended up being bad because the people running it thought they knew some secret about how much things were worth, but really it was just a bunch of overpriced junk. I am ashamed to admit it but I bought these for $7.50: 

I had to buy them. What they say is true. 

Sorry about the animal hair in that photo. During my week off, this is what I was dealing with: 

Isn’t she cute? She’s my new dog, Betsy. She deserves a moment of recognition on this world famous blog. 

Erin and I also went to National Coney Island again, where I was able to make her buy me TEN bags of those coney chips because she owed me some money. 

Tomorrow, I’ll update you all with how day two went. The highlight of the day may or may not have been a potato taco Lenten special. 

Our sales this week were pretty interesting, not really because of our purchases but because of the weird-ass houses we visited.

The second house we visited on our journey was in Bloomfield Hills, and by all appearances, was about to be one of the fanciest (and largest) homes I had ever entered.  This was pretty much true, until things got weird.

Turns out that this house was the PLAYHOUSE of a larger home behind it.  In the 1960s, it was finally separated from its master home and sold as a residence itself.  The first sign of its former playhouse glory days was the front entry:

Looks normal enough, but this entryway used to be a POOL!  Check out that tile floor.  The drop-off on the right was the deep-end.  And check out the former pool wall and drains:

The first few rooms of this house were really impressive.  They had a tavern, a wine cellar, and a crazy opulent ballroom.

As we got further into the recesses of this house though, we started noticing a severe change of scenery.  Things went the way of Grey Gardens pretty quickly.

An upstairs bedroom had a once-beautiful atrium with a hot tub.  It now looked like the apocalypse had set in and people were long vanished from these parts:

The carpet in nearly all of the upstairs’ rooms was either horrifically stained or looked like this:

To be honest, it was just WEIRD.  I looked at Sarah and said, “Something is not right.” The house felt increasingly sad, and creepy.

We found out before leaving that both owners of the home were still alive, but had moved into a condo after getting Alzheimer’s.  The home was a fading testament to their high-style living.  

Again, it all felt very sad.  But it also felt just really, really weird.  Who leaves behind a gorgeous mansion to sit and decay?  Where was their family?  We didn’t get answers to those questions, but here is what we did get (not much):

I found a cool hand-painted Mexican plate for $5.

And a book about the wilderness because I am OBSESSED with anything relative to Into the Wild.

Everything else in the house was too weird, too dirty, or too expensive.  I was really happy with my 2 finds though, and at seeing the inside of this wild home.

-Erin

Update from Sarah: Erin’s description is perfect. Also, the house started having a grody smell after a while and my gag reflex started kicking in.

Another thing–I tried to buy the sellers’ magnifying glass by accident. What can I say? It looked cool and was left sitting there on a table with other old things! 

I did find some cool vintage sheets that say “SLEEP” all over them: 

They smell pretty musty but you can tell they’re clean and aren’t stained. I need someone who can sew to make me a little throw quilt out of them. 

I also got a little gnome Christmas ornament and some greeting cards to add to my collection. 

We went to two other interesting houses on Friday that I’ll post about ASAP. 

P.S. Look at the giant chip in that plate Erin bought. WTF?