Some neighbors of ours held a garage sale. They told us about it and asked if we wanted to sell any thing. We had some junk in the basement that we wanted to get rid of so I loaded up the truck and took it over.

On sale day, about half way through the day, the police show up. They inform my neighbor that there is a fee and permit required to have a garage sale. And you’re limited to two sales per year (my neighbor was in no trouble of violating that one). Officer friendly let just told him to remember that next time. No harm, no foul. I did some research (i.e., talked to some people who would know) to find out why the limit; why there’s a fee; and why there’s a form to fill out. Turns out, it’s a law that has been on the books for a long time but it was never enforced. Until Ebay. Seems a lot of folks run Ebay based businesses out of their homes. Whenever stuff wasn’t selling on Ebay, they’d have garage sales. And, apparently, people started complaining that certain other people were having garage sales every couple of weeks and were basically operating a trafficked business from their homes. And these sales caused traffic problems and, generally, made life hard on their fellow subdivision denizens.

Anyway, the garage sale was a success. So much so that the Mrs. wants to have one in our yard because we’ve found all sorts of other stuff that, at one time, we absolutely had to have but we now no longer need. Like my robot (looks like this). So, being the law-abiding sorts we are, she wants to pay the fee and get the permit. She called. Turns out, there is no fee. But there is an application and it is designed just to ensure you limit your sales to two per year.

Also, she was googling up yard sales and fees and Maryville and her first result was Les Jones. Small internet.

Posted in uncategorized on September 4th, 2007 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |