I used to buy Happy Meals because they were a good deal for a small Coke, small fries and small burger. With no crotchfruit or grand-crotchfruit of my own, I’d save them up all year and hand them out at Halloween, along with the full-sized candy bars. Kids always loved to come to our house.
Sadly, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and the other health maladies that accompany middle-age, I no longer hit the Arches. I could SO Hoover me some of those fries!!!
The bookmark and KFC bag people have got to be trollin’. I don’t have any faith left in humanity, so it doesn’t matter to me either way: I just cleaned out my grandmother’s house a few months ago, though, and I’ll be real pissed if it turns out there was a market for the canned beef and Vaseline I found that expired in 1956.
Jesus. I’ve just been throwing away years of accumulated stuff from my mother’s house to get ready for the estate sale. Who knew I was throwing away feature items with “flare”?
You wouldn’t have an Etsy shop, would you? I’m a bit of a hoarder collector of eclectic crap items and would be very interested in totally humiliating myself what you’re selling.
No, Mugsy, but maybe I should consider it. I’ll put up a link if I do.
The will hasn’t cleared probate yet. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Mom grew up on a farm during the Depression. You never know when someone might need something. But sorry, I’ve already thrown away the carefully stashed cotton from medicine bottles and clean cereal bag liners.
And her wardrobe has gone to hipster heaven, aka Goodwill. Except these really cool pointy gold pumps, her silk scarves and her mink jacket. My dad’s top hat is still around, too.
Skantily, I had to clean out my mom’s house (was I the executrix? hell no, that was my lazy-ass brother, but I digress). Took me 10 months. I’d grown up in that house and we’d lived there for 30+ years. I wasn’t too anxious to say good-bye (I didn’t live there).
My folks were Depression-era as well. Nope, can’t throw out anything. I insisted that we take two carloads of never-used or hardly used things in very good shape to Goodwill. Mom would not have wanted them to go to waste if her kids had no use.
It was a pretty big house with LOTS of nooks and crannies to store things. I sent so much to my sister, threw out a lot, but there was still a lot left. I had my limits…which is why I rented a storage unit (Thank you! I’m here all week!).
Seriously, it is overwhelming. Take your time. By Month 8 or so I was fed up. I’d gone from “I loved this and want it!” to “Fuck it, I’ll decide when I unpack the storage unit.”
+22
mutzali
October 25, 2011 at 3:46 pm
When my uncle died at 88, we had a wonderful/horrible time cleaning out the house he’d lived in since the 20s. He had never married, but he loved having my folks and the seven of us kids come to visit. We loved going to the house my Mom grew up in, but Uncle Herman never threw out anything. In addition to the stacks of 60-year-old dishes stuck to the oilcloth in the kitchen cupboards and the basement full of blue canning jars of fruit my Grandmother put up in the 30s, we found a cigar box labeled “Pens–dont work”. It was full of dried-up ball points.
The 6-foot high stacks of newspaper and flattened cardboard went to recycling, as did the barrels of bottles and cans from the back yard. But the best thing we found was the filing cabinet where he’d kept every wedding invitation and birth announcement from the past 50 years, along with the kindergarten fingerpaintings through college graduation announcements from 3 generations of nieces and nephews.
+88
TheSheep
October 25, 2011 at 4:33 pm
My parents are depression era too, and cleaning up their summer house (which they lived in 12 years after retirement) was a holy MESS after my father died. I had to hire help finally. His workshop had every square inch covered with unbelievable amounts of crap he never used. I gave it all away to people who would either use it or had the patience for eBay.
I’m not looking forward to my mother’s apartment on that dread day. It is just as bad, if a little smaller.
The winner of the depression era hoarder game has to go to my friend Maria’s family. She found a bag on the floor of the basement where her grandfather had a shop that was neatly labeled, “bits of string too short to use”.
+62
angel drawers
October 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand miles of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it–
+13
msdoolittle
October 25, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I think my mother said it best, “The Depression fucked a lot of people up.” That being said after she and I went through her MIL’s house and my grandmother’s. We threw away dumpster lodes of old crusty (vintage?!!!) wrapping paper, scraps of polyester fabric too small to make a Barbie sock, and about 5 balls of rubber bands from the newspapers that had melted together with time. Not to mention about 400 cottage cheese tubs. Sigh.
+20
msdoolittle
October 25, 2011 at 8:16 pm
LOADS, dammit, not lodes….maybe thinking of ‘motherlode’? Geez.
+5
mutzali
October 25, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Oh, yeah, MsD! The hundreds of rubber bands that had either morphed into goo or were so brittle that they poofed into powder as soon as they were stretched in the slightest! Did you have lots of pencils that had been sharpened down to 1/2 inch stubs?
To be fair, that cotton from medicine bottles is perfect for re-wadding Zippo lighters. As someone who has ~500 of them, that could come in handy.
+9
Midnight Rambler
October 26, 2011 at 1:45 am
angel drawers – just put it on Etsy with a picture of a nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string, and it’ll be selling like hotcakes!
+7
MsChilePepper
October 26, 2011 at 2:58 am
Skantily, I feel your pain. I have helped clean out my grandparents’ house and a few years back, helped my parents clean out their garage. It was disturbing in so many ways, yet we doggedly got it done.
Y’know, if this isn’t weird, maybe you could post your general location and contact info, and maybe some fine Regretsian would be interested in helping you out. I certainly would, as I’m unworking right now. A totally disinterested outsider can really help make those tough “keep/donate/toss” decisions easier. So yeah, if you’re in the Seattle area, I’m your huckleberry!
+19
M
October 26, 2011 at 12:06 pm
My basic plan for clearing my Mum’s, when she finally goes is “torch the place”.
I know when it really happens I’ll be carefully sorting through 1/2 inch pencil stubs like everyone else who’s responded to skantily clad, here – but it doesn’t half help me cope with the incipient panic, to pretend that’s not the case.
I paid 250 dollars to have a dumpster parked and then tow away a houseful of vintage junk. Based on these pictures and rates, I could have uploaded cell phone pix of the contents and maybe walked away with a couple of thousand dollars.
Double Damn!! When my Gram died we just got a giant green dumpster & tossed over 90 years of potential sale items. Just imagine what I could have gotten for my greatgrandmother’s vintage, steampunk hospital bed that was raised & lowered with a crank! Not to mention the collection of plungers in a variety of sizes (still trying to figure those out.) I am so depressed that I must drink extra tonight
That’s how my Italian-born dad would say it and he grew up in Brooklyn. And when we moved to Queens, we heated our house with erl.
+8
dorothy
October 26, 2011 at 1:46 pm
We look out the winders while warshing things in the zink.
+8
Dinosaurland
October 25, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I have a vintage empty Keebler Fudge Shoppe box right here on my desk, if anyone is interested. I’ve also got two broken rosaries in my top drawer, but I’m asking for more on those because they’re art pieces. This repurposed bobby pin/ear cleaner is totally up for grabs, though.
If you fix them, how will they symbolize the shattered faith of millions of disillusioned Catholics? Use your head, a whole rosary I could sell for maybe 15 bucks. A rosary of broken dreams? 150, minimum.
OMG OMG OMG! I am one—I am one of those millions of disillusioned Catholics and now I desperately want that rosary. I don’t care that I never was devout, that I never took the whole thing seriously, and that I stopped attending Mass during the Carter Administration. DAMN YOU, NOW I MUST HAVE THAT ROSARY!
Personally, I prefer a Bic pencap for the removal of earwax. It has a nice cup shape but with a sharp edge to really improve the scraping required in the ear canal. Also, it isn’t long enough to actually get too far into the ear, so it’s perfectly safe!
I’ve been using those to clean under my nails since middle school, but I never considered they might be useful for other bodily crud! I’ve been enlightened!
This is sort of a non-sequitor but I am suddenly reminded of the time I went out to breakfast with family, and my younger brother-in-law picked up a toothpick to use when he was finished eating. Halfway through the meal he was getting ready to use it when he noticed my OTHER brother-in-law had picked said toothpick up and was using it to clean his fingernails.
That’s no big deal, it’s when you realize you’re cleaning your teeth with the one that your brother-in-law was using on his fingernails that it becomes a problem.
+4
monkey33
October 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm
We could all get together and start a shop! I’ve got:
-Enough empty wine and booze bottles to fill a DIY Lamps Plus
-Plastic hangers, wooden hangers, metal hangers, and,maybe I’m not sure, resin hangers
-A jar filled with used nails, mostly in L or J shape; perfect for a person looking for a birthday present for someone named LJ
-A fitted red sheet with a big hole at one end so you could slip it over your head and go as the pope to your Halloween party
-Assorted shades of dryer lint – create your own rainbow!
-A Camel cigarette pack filled with 20 Camel cigarette butts (love that post-structuralist irony, don’t you?)
-4 Bass loafer shoe boxers that could be re-purposed into a fishing tackle box for that hipster angler
Let’s make some money!
But a lot of them are Chick-Fil-A Bible-based toys, so they’re not even as much fun as condiment packets.
Love Chick-Fil-A, but they should just pack it up when it comes to the worthless kiddie crap. They’re almost as bad as Wendy’s or Subway in that department.
I’m hyperventilating over the amount of money I could have gotten for my sons Happy Meal Toys. They introduced them just about the time they were old enough to be attracted to fast food, and they didn’t give up on wanting one of everything new till they finally got into Middle School.
Plus, since I had twins, I had duplicates of everything. And the early Happy Meal toys were pretty sturdy-They just turned 31 on Monday, and we still occasionally run across one that’s intact and works
What are Bible-based toys. Other than a children’s Bible or a toy Noah’s ark I’m lost. I’m picturing action figures: JC with healing hands grips and a as basket of loaves and fishes, repenting Paul on his knees, Judas – comes with 30 pieces of silver & his own noose.
Oh dear, I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?
not even a straight edge cut even, how lazy can you get and still expect to sell your shit? i guess i should start selling every random scrap of paper or soda straw i use for a book mark too.
Really? I usually use bits of toilet paper, since I’m hereditarily incapable of urinating or defecating without literary assistance, thus most of my books wind up in the bathroom at some point.
Translation: I can’t poop without a book and neither can my Dad.
I love finding out I’m not the only one. I, too, cannot poop without reading something. In the event of the emergency I’ll even settle for the back of the air freshener can.
Mike, is that you? I didn’t know you read Regretsy! (my guy has an entire library on top of the toilet tank, and uses TP for a bookmark, so I’m pretty sure you are him)
If I get desperate enough for entertainment, I’ll read my husband’s car magazines (OMG BORING.) He has a pile at least a foot deep, within arm’s length.
Or, better yet, I’ll pick out a nice long word on the cover, like carburetor, and see how many words I can make out of the letters.
Well I for one will be purchasing it to add to my bookmark collection*
*I lied. Not about the bookmark collection, but about buying it. I already made one from the box in my cupboard. Is that stealing intellectual property?
At the risk of being down-thumbed, I have to say that the fan/space heater is at least a legitimate collector’s item. You might be surprised at how desirable those can be, and $25 isn’t half bad; I’ve seen many priced higher. People will either use them as-is just for decoration (not saying *I* would do this, mind), or they’ll have them professionally restored/rewired to be safe for use (now this I might do).
Seriously, you can’t beat a good, rewired vintage fan for durability. Those suckers will last fucking forever.
The part about the “flare” really was pretty awesome, though . . .
I’m with you. I bought a ZERO desk fan off eBay a few years ago (maybe $25 plus shipping; I’m not a specific collector, but it was in great shape and would work better and for much longer than a $25 fan I could buy today) and it works well, especially if I’m tired of a few fingertips. I have a desk lamp from the 1940s (my father’s, purchased new) that I’ve seen in police stations in old noir films. Mine needs to be rewired before I’ll plug it in, and I want to bring the old plug with me and ask the electrician if he or she can reattach it with wiring that won’t add a flare to my home.
I picked up a ZERO fan at an antique shop to put in my kitchen when I lived in a tiny 1960s mobile home. My kitchen looked like a diner – black, white and red.
Still have the fan, but the trailer burned up a couple of years after I sold it, reportedly due to an electrical mishap. I think the water heater under the kitchen sink may have had a little too much of that “flare.” No one was home so no human harm was done, but I used to see a mouse occasionally when I was living there. Poor mouse. :< (…though maybe he's been "repurposed." *shudder*)
Amusingly, the newspaper reported "$17,000 in property damage." I sold the thing for $3,000. $14,000 worth of furniture/electronics/personal belongings? In 500 very "vintage" square feet of trailer? Quite possible, I suppose, but odd. Then again, at the time I lived there, I drove a car worth much more than my living space, so who am I to pass judgement!
Well, as long as we’re doing this, McDonald’s toys are a legitimate field of collecting as well. People are usually looking for ones from the 90′s and older, though.
Last night’s episode was amazeballs. Dude had to tunnel through his own apartment! He slept on a bench outside his building! You could smell the cat pee from the second floor!
And the Victorian-obsessed lady was a whole other level of crazy. Over $100,000 worth of damage from her hoard, and she barely batted an eye while her daughter dissolved into weeping.
I love Hoarders because it makes me feel so insanely clean and immaculate. My room mates are very messy and hell, the show makes them look pristine too.
Oh god it was good. It would have been 10/10 but my sweet baboo Matt Paxton was MIA.
The Victorian lady was amazing. Dr. Robin was all “LOOK at this rat-shit encrusted, urine-stained doily that you totally bought for $0.50 at a garage sale in 1978. WHY would you want to keep this?” and Victoria’s only reply was “oh, I never noticed the…uh…holes in it before.”
Sorry, Mike Rowe is at my house right now. He definitely won’t be showing up at yours anytime soon.
You can have Max. I love his attitude but he does nothing for me.
+17
Wednesday
October 25, 2011 at 4:23 pm
My daughter jokes that we don’t really have to bother cleaning until Dr. Zasio knocks on the door. My standards are low, but we’re not quite at the 1-800-Got-Junk prospecting list yet.
I just saw the episode (its up on A&E’s website already-note to self.
Honestly, how is that apartment even physically POSSIBLE?? Just the engineering of it blows my mind. Him and that lady absolutely have mental issues. He has some sort of disassociative/denial thing going on, and she… she’s flat out mental. The line about those Victorian objects being “a part of her soul” and “old friends”- WTF??
I suspect that a lot of the elderly people either suffer from Alzheimers or untreated mental illness. I had an Aunt in California die recently, and my sister, her husband, and another one of my uncles have been cleaning out her house, and she says she’s willing to bet my aunt hadn’t thrown anything away since the 1970s. They originally thought the kitchen linoleum was black and white checked, until they started scrubbing it and discovered there was, literally, layer of dirt on it so thick they had to chip it off.
There’s a specific part of the brain that controls the urge of “I need to acquire and keep this”. When it works normally, it ensures you have some food in the house and money in the bank. When it misfires, you end up hoarding.
People who are deprived during childhood (e.g. the Great Depression generation) seem to develop this area more than those who grow up in plenty. Which makes biological sense — if your environment is one of scarcity, it’s best to be programmed to gather what you can and waste as little as possible.
Hardcore pathological hoarders are also hyper-alert to minute details of objects. We’re happy to throw away a dried-up ballpoint pen because the next one will replace it. To a hoarder, the old one is unique and can’t ever be fully replaced.
I do, too! I’ve been watching past episodes on Netflix, since I refuse to throw my money away to the antiquated, overpriced cable company in my area and we can’t get satellite tv since my landlord doesn’t want any dishes on the building. So past shows it is!
Anyway, the show is kind of like a train wreck for me. I’m horrified by it, but I just HAVE TO LOOK!
Or bit torrent and usenet. I haven’t watched anything on TV in a long time.
+2
OldPhatMC
October 25, 2011 at 2:53 pm
FluffyBunnyTurds: If you’re in the US, it’s a violation of federal law for your landlord to keep you from putting in a satellite dish. He can tell you how to attach it to the building but he can’t stop you from doing it.
Since I don’t watch much TV it’s a non issue for me.
I didn’t know that, thanks for the information. I don’t think this is an issue I’d push with him though. He’s actually the best landlord I’ve ever had, and I’ve been a renter my entire adult life. Things need fixing, he’s right there. He charges a fair rent, keeps the property looking nice, allows pets, etc.
To be honest,it’s not really a big deal for me anyway. We use the instant streaming over the Wii for the Netflix, and haven’t run out of stuff to watch yet. Plus I’m not paying for a bunch of channels I’ll never watch, and I’m only paying a little over $20 a month for it.
+17
lilkender
October 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm
The show both makes me feel better and motivates me to clean, before I get buried in my craft materi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclutter.
It also stops me from going shopping after I watch shows like American Pickers.
I watched it twice because of the doofus tunneling through acres of trash. The landlord never lost that look of HOLY FUCKING CHRIST — as he evicted Mr “I’ve never had a job because I mooched off my parents for about the last 45 fucking years” what a sorry excuse for being a lazy ass.
I thought I knew my TV history trivia and I had never heard of the famous parents -
I’m surprised the landlord allowed it to go on as long as it had. You’d think with neighbor complaints, he’d be right on top of it. I’m sure there are fire or health codes (especially in NYC) that were violated because of the apartment that he’d be afraid of getting fined for.
TV crack indeed. There was a recent rerun with a woman who failed to get her stuff cleared out because she was saving it for her “art”. I knew she was doomed when the announcer said, “She realized she could use these broken pieces to make her altered art.” Julie in Englewood, CO, (add sing-songy voice here) bet she’s got an Etsy shop.
I could watch Matt Paxton all day, I wish he had his own show. One of my favorite Matt quotes, “We’re all four or five bad decisions away from pooping in a bucket.” Some are closer, I think. That might be like degrees of Kevin Bacon – how many degrees away from pooping in a bucket are you?
He was supposed to be having a show (he has a FB page if you’re interested), but I guess it didn’t pan out, because there seems to be a totally different show with the same title.
Anyway, he has a podcast that will be starting up sometime next month, I think, called (aptly) “5 Decisions Away.”
(oh, and speaking of FB, “The Possum from Hoarders” has his own page…I’m a fan LOL.)
Did you catch the part where her son was collecting stuff that he could sell? He said it was for garage sales, but come on, you know some of that crap will end up on Etsy.
I’ve been afraid to watch it. Either I see that I’m nowhere near as bad, and feel justified hunkering down in my packratty den of sloth, or I’ll feel compelled to go on a mad cleaning binge. Lose-lose for me, alas.
As long as you’re not international. That’s the kind of precious, patriotic memorabilia that needs to stay in the US, I guess. Since surely shipping a piece of paper is not too difficult for this seller to achieve…
Actually I think the medical supplies are pretty neat. The kind of thing you could give a retired nurse? maybe?
Make up some story about how a little girl was stabbed by her drunken father and ran to the cottage for shelter, these being the only medical equipment on hand. She died that day, and ever since the seller came into possession of these vintage medical supplies, strange things have been happening…
Just last month, we cleaned out the cupboard in the bathroom because it was being gutted (long story – you don’t really give a crap), and we THREW AWAY a small fortune in expired chloraseptic, rusty tin bandaid boxes, foot powder and calamine lotion from the 1960s. I could have taken the week off from work with the proceeds from that.
But I still have a plastic bag from a SF convention from the 1970′s with a drawing of Spock on it. Nobody’s getting that until AFTER I die!
When my father had his teeth extracted, he got all the gold fillings out and melted them together to make a “nugget”. I still have that nugget, actually.
I think I already said this on the facebook page once, but THIS is my solution for the houseful of broken crap my Grandfather will inevitably leave for us.
Wood-paneled TV’s, busted lawnmowers, piles of old Chatelaine magazines, asbestos-filled ceiling tiles scavenged from the Walmart renovation….All tagged “Vintage” on Etsy. Genius.
Who buys that many kids’ meals and doesn’t let their kid play with the fucking toy? They already ate the shitty food, they stopped pestering you, and you got a Double Stack too–let them have the Sponge Bob toy, fer Chrissakes! Does Monet Parham have an Etsy account??
Some of the toys have been opened and taped back in those very valuable plastic bags.
All I can think is it’s one of those crazy dieters buying the kids meal for the small portions, and then wondering how they can pay for those tiny boxes of food.
My kid insists on them but doesn’t want the toys. I save ‘em and send big boxes to a special ed teacher friend who uses them as prizes in the classroom. CLEARLY I should be selling them on Etsy; wtf am I thinking, sending them to a teacher for FREE when I could be funding the next bottle of vodka?
I have a small stash of happy meal toys because one of my friends convinced me they would be really valuable one day. But I don’t have enough to qualify for hoarders – in case you were wondering.
I did that one year. I mostly had the little books you get at Chic-fil-a, and one little boy ran down the street yelling, “Mama, mama, I got a book!” It was kind of awesome.
My former brother-in-law used to go through McDonald’s every day for lunch, and order a kid’s meal. Then he’d tell them to Super Size it. It was his one genius moment in life, or so he thought.
Guy’s skinny as a rail, too. I don’t understand how anyone could eat a bucket of fries and drink a barrel of coke every day for lunch and still weigh about 47 lbs.
My husband used to work with somebody who had the metabolism of a hummingbird. He made a loaf’s worth of sandwiches to bring to work every day, just to see him through the time between a big cooked breakfast and a big cooked lunch. Skinny as a whippet and always running out of energy — he used to grab naps on top of the cabinets throughout the day.
I reaaaalllly want the bookmark! If only I could work a pair of scissors and cut a piece of cardboard from a box myself. I just don’t know how these people come up with this stuff. talk about inspiring!
I’m thinking when I figure out how to work scissors, I’m gonna get me some of those fancy ones that cut patterns. Then we’ll see who’s making the big money
Those fancy ones are totally worth learning to uses scissors! One of these days, I’m going to wait until my hubby is sleeping and give him a haircut with a pair.
So the bags are resealed to appear like new? I know a woman who had that done twice. Funny how the second husband never questioned why his wife-who’d-had-an-annulment was still a virgin.
Why some people want it to hurt all over again completely mystifies me.
+4
Mugsy Doodle
October 26, 2011 at 9:38 am
@Rana, that’s one of the reasons, but the first marriage had been consummated. My aunt figured that a virgin would be a more valuable commodity on the market. This was the 1970s, so perhaps it was, outside of certain religions then and now.
+1
finette
October 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm
“Flare” is not something you want in a space heater…
They’ve taken down the bookmark one so I can’t enlarge it to be sure, but it’s a square of cardboard cut from a non-vintage box, yes? And it’s $2? Because tomorrow’s recycling day and I came THIS CLOSE to throwing out so much inventory.
Not only that, but it doesn’t look like they could operate a pair of scissors well. Perhaps it’s just the angle (being very generous here), but the damn thing looked more crooked than the shit my 7 year old comes home with.
At least she has hoarded stuff that doesn’t go bad and stink up the place.(I hope)The smell is the worst part. I have seen how bad hoarding can get. The mice and rat fights are loud, the bugs multilpy daily, and for some reason that three year old carton of eggs in the corner just can’t be let go. It is a serious compulsion that starts out small, and then one day, BAM! You’re gonna need 6 dumpsters, face masks, and biohazard suits to get rid of it all.
I now feel like I’m missing out on huge revenue when I force my daughter to clean her room! Whatever am I thinking? I know, I’ll go get a knife and start cutting up my tidy cat container for bookmarks!
Oooh that reminds me of a former coworker, nice guy, very creative. He was bored with his corded phone at the office cubicle (it was the 80′s…) and he hot glued tiny toys (about a half-inch to an inch in size) to the entire phone. Number keys, the entire body of the phone. You had to use it very carefully. It was pretty cool!
“Complete with greasy stains!”
I don’t care what you say that shit made me LOL. After visiting the seller’s shop I have no other choice than to think they are in on the joke, check out this tagline:
“An inspired moment creates a spontaneous urge”
My mind is running wild with exceptional endings to that phrase.
On a related repurposing cardboard boxes, but for a good cause and not ridiculous fuckery note, I heard today that Cheerios has teamed with the USO to send “cheer” to the troops… I guess Cheerios boxes will be marked so you can cut out the “Cheer” from the front of the box to mail as a postcard to the troops… the address is printed on the inside of the box. Just add message and postage.
I repurposed a Cheerios box the other day. I made it into a drop spindle. A crap pencil, cardboard from the box (the remainder was recycled, natch), tape, and a paperclip, and now I’m plying some yarn with it.
Thanks for sharing that. I hadn’t heard. I can’t eat Cheerios, but my mom and sister eat them like there’s no tomorrow, so I bet we can send cheer to loads of soldiers.
I’m chain-plying on a handmade, multiple exotic woods, finely balanced drop spindle. ON hand-painted wool I bought on Etsy.
I feel so snobby right now.
I made my own drop spindle, that I call my “Disco Stick” It’s basically a stained stick with 2 CD’s and a glitter disco ball. I like N plying, but I prefer Andean plying myself.
we could scrape up the money and get it ourselves. with a pair of scissors we could totally make a crap load of VINTAGE bookmarks and sell em’ for a profit. We could even charge more for the ones that have the stains
I’m surprised they don’t emphasize that it IS vintage because the corporation isn’t Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore—it’s KFC. And I don’t think the Colonel is on the packaging, either, but I’m not positive of that.
That colonel portrait is from a few makeovers ago too. I think it likely is a few decades old, but with it not being mint it’s likely not too valuable.
And speaking of Hoarders, watched an episode last night. This woman had no heat or running water in her house (in Michigan…in the winter) and the trash was piled at least two feet high all throughout her house. Because she had to running water she was shitting in plastic grocery bags and then leaving them all over the house. I almost puked watching that episode.
I guess she was drinking all that apple juice; with no running water, the liquid for the pee had to come from somewhere!
0
jerseycow6
October 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Ew. I’m well on my way to being a hoarder (it runs in the family), and even I wouldn’t want that crap… it just doesn’t go with my empty egg cartons, cereal boxes, and paper towel tubes. At least all the crap I save can be reused, especially with my daycare kiddos.
What gets me about it is that the seller basically says you can’t use it–it’s not strong enough for anything other than coats, but if you hang coats on it, they’ll get ruined by the grime. o.O
Regresty, you have rewired my brain. We had a massive clean out on the weekend and more than once, I thought I should sell some of the crap on etsy. I do take my hat off to some of the sellers, since in my view, if you can get someone to part with their cash for a rusty fan heater you found in your shed,or some absurd outfit made from the remains of granny’s macrame out planter- the important thing is that their cash is now your cash. I wonder if its too late to catch the garbage truck…
Careful – the last time Helen mocked one of those LARPers, he got so offended that he divorced his wife, remember? Although I guess that was a win for her in the long run, so…
Actually, those are pretty darn awesome. You have any idea how difficult it is to embroider suede? Even if that’s imitation suede, the soles are real leather and that’s a bitch to shove a needle through.
True story- I have paper baking cups that date back to the late 1960s. My mom gave them to me ages ago and I can’t make myself use them for fear of them disintegrating upon use and I can’t bring myself to throw them away because of their age and nostalgia.
NOW I CAN SELL THEM!
Don’t worry, kids, Momma’s got a solution to your tuition problems!
I have an EMPTY Kroger Waffle box in my freezer. I came home from work – car on fritz so I got a ride – no lunch today because I forgot to bring it – really wanted waffles. It was a full box when I put it in there. Now it is empty. Daughter in law: “Oh, they were in there a while and you didn’t eat them, did you want them?” No – I just buy them so you will eat them and leave the fucking empty box in there. I’ll just eat bread.
I have some freshly used Q-tips with some “vintage” earwax.
A used paper bowl, dirty plastic fork and not yet rotting crust edge from apple pie included. “It doesn’t smell!”
A mostly used tube of sunblock from last year. Perfect for those staged photos for 2010 you forgot to take of yourself relaxing in the backyard in the sun.
A dozen empty toilet paper roll tubes. Essential item needed for a toilet paper roll Katchina doll. Perfect for Thanksgiving Native American themed decor for the children’s table.
A partially used pencil, crappy, white, crumbling eraser had disintegrated already, but perfect for jabbing your own eyes out of you can’t bear to keep reading my list of old, partially used junk I can’t bear to throw out (until the garbage truck comes later this week).
I love how the listing for the fan specifies that it heats up well AND the “cooling system” works, too.
See, the “cooling system” of which they speak is what the rest of us would call a FAN. The heating function is the fan plus a thingy that heats up the air. So saying “the heating works, and the cooling system does, too!” is kinda like saying “My kid knows how to jump rope, and also she can hop up and down in place with her arms at her sides!” one of these things automatically implies the other.
My grandfather has an old tv in storage, one of the first colour televisions, that he built by hand.
One of the rare instances that something could be sold on Etsy as vintage and handmade.
The KFC bag ships to the US only? Oh no! How will us Canadians get ahold of greasy bags that once contained chicken for over 20 dollars? C’mon, am I going to have to actually buy KFC?
OMG!! Animal carcasses are sustainable, organic and green! Knit a cowl for one, photograph it on a worn wooden background, and I can pretty much guarantee a front-page feature.
Also, there should an exclusive “Hoarders” fragrance that conveys the unique scent that only a hoarded house can produce. Can’t think of a name for it, though. Eau de … ?
Speaking of shameless hoarding on Etsy. . . I’ve had this listing logged in my favs for months: http://www.etsy.com/listing/63745323/hoarder-dollhouse It’s pretty priceless–and is probably an acurate representation of what my house will look like 40 years from now ;oP
Does “The Only Sane Person In The World” have their own Facebook page? Because they should. I’d do it, but I’m only marginally sane at the best of times.
@idrewacat – Trust me… No sane nurse out there wants “vintage” bandaids as a gift. It would be the equivalent of giving a plumber a hot, stinking pile of shit on a paper plate. Plus, at least to an ER nurse, the bandaide is the most useless piece of crap ever invented. I don’t waste my time with wounds that can be fixed with a bandaide.
Awwwww, you forget about the old crack addict. Bring old memories and that old itch by giving them a bandaid box that looked just like the one they used to stash their junk for smoking/shooting.
So, I’m not kidding, I had hoarder relatives that had pretty much all of that. And more. so much more. They had to move in with a different relative because there was no longer any room for them in their own house. It was that full of stuff. Two different relatives. A father and daughter. They both had this problem. One house had the roof cave in, became condemned, and all was lost. The other house was robbed, all the valuble crap stolen, the rest of the crap ruined from water damage that came in through the broken-in windows. Became condemned. All was lost.
The relatives died.
My place is full of stuff, to the point where I have to put things on empty spaces on the floor because there’s no other room, LOL…and I keep thinking, holy hell, I could Etsy all this and make a mint!
October 25, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Etsy: You’re misspelling “Ebay” again.
October 25, 2011 at 5:13 pm
would that be “d u m p” ?
October 26, 2011 at 5:23 am
That first one also mistook “flare” for “flair”. You do not want “flare” with your rusty old space heater.
October 26, 2011 at 10:20 am
Depends on your insurance policy, I guess!
October 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I used to buy Happy Meals because they were a good deal for a small Coke, small fries and small burger. With no crotchfruit or grand-crotchfruit of my own, I’d save them up all year and hand them out at Halloween, along with the full-sized candy bars. Kids always loved to come to our house.
Sadly, with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and the other health maladies that accompany middle-age, I no longer hit the Arches. I could SO Hoover me some of those fries!!!
October 25, 2011 at 12:50 pm
struggling to work out if this is fake or not.
I WANT IT TO BE REAL.
October 25, 2011 at 2:55 pm
I think it’s as real using a round billiard ball as a bookend or paperweight.
October 25, 2011 at 2:55 pm
*real as using
And I’m not even drunk yet.
October 25, 2011 at 10:06 pm
As I was watching Hoarders last night, as soon as she called something “victorian”, I tweeted this: http://twitter.com/#!/GitEmSteveDave/status/128640286552363008
October 26, 2011 at 10:22 am
All I could think was how Etsy it all was, what with the massive misattribution of eras.
October 28, 2011 at 11:33 pm
The bookmark and KFC bag people have got to be trollin’. I don’t have any faith left in humanity, so it doesn’t matter to me either way: I just cleaned out my grandmother’s house a few months ago, though, and I’ll be real pissed if it turns out there was a market for the canned beef and Vaseline I found that expired in 1956.
October 25, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Damn, I must clean out my Dad’s storage facility and sell all the trash I find…. Who knew people were so DIRTY LMAO
October 25, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Jesus. I’ve just been throwing away years of accumulated stuff from my mother’s house to get ready for the estate sale. Who knew I was throwing away feature items with “flare”?
October 25, 2011 at 1:56 pm
You wouldn’t have an Etsy shop, would you? I’m a bit of a
hoardercollector of eclecticcrapitems and would be very interested intotally humiliating myselfwhat you’re selling.October 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm
No, Mugsy, but maybe I should consider it. I’ll put up a link if I do.
The will hasn’t cleared probate yet. I’m a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Mom grew up on a farm during the Depression. You never know when someone might need something. But sorry, I’ve already thrown away the carefully stashed cotton from medicine bottles and clean cereal bag liners.
And her wardrobe has gone to hipster heaven, aka Goodwill. Except these really cool pointy gold pumps, her silk scarves and her mink jacket. My dad’s top hat is still around, too.
October 25, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Skantily, I had to clean out my mom’s house (was I the executrix? hell no, that was my lazy-ass brother, but I digress). Took me 10 months. I’d grown up in that house and we’d lived there for 30+ years. I wasn’t too anxious to say good-bye (I didn’t live there).
My folks were Depression-era as well. Nope, can’t throw out anything. I insisted that we take two carloads of never-used or hardly used things in very good shape to Goodwill. Mom would not have wanted them to go to waste if her kids had no use.
It was a pretty big house with LOTS of nooks and crannies to store things. I sent so much to my sister, threw out a lot, but there was still a lot left. I had my limits…which is why I rented a storage unit (Thank you! I’m here all week!).
Seriously, it is overwhelming. Take your time. By Month 8 or so I was fed up. I’d gone from “I loved this and want it!” to “Fuck it, I’ll decide when I unpack the storage unit.”
October 25, 2011 at 3:46 pm
When my uncle died at 88, we had a wonderful/horrible time cleaning out the house he’d lived in since the 20s. He had never married, but he loved having my folks and the seven of us kids come to visit. We loved going to the house my Mom grew up in, but Uncle Herman never threw out anything. In addition to the stacks of 60-year-old dishes stuck to the oilcloth in the kitchen cupboards and the basement full of blue canning jars of fruit my Grandmother put up in the 30s, we found a cigar box labeled “Pens–dont work”. It was full of dried-up ball points.
The 6-foot high stacks of newspaper and flattened cardboard went to recycling, as did the barrels of bottles and cans from the back yard. But the best thing we found was the filing cabinet where he’d kept every wedding invitation and birth announcement from the past 50 years, along with the kindergarten fingerpaintings through college graduation announcements from 3 generations of nieces and nephews.
October 25, 2011 at 4:33 pm
My parents are depression era too, and cleaning up their summer house (which they lived in 12 years after retirement) was a holy MESS after my father died. I had to hire help finally. His workshop had every square inch covered with unbelievable amounts of crap he never used. I gave it all away to people who would either use it or had the patience for eBay.
I’m not looking forward to my mother’s apartment on that dread day. It is just as bad, if a little smaller.
The winner of the depression era hoarder game has to go to my friend Maria’s family. She found a bag on the floor of the basement where her grandfather had a shop that was neatly labeled, “bits of string too short to use”.
October 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand miles of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it–
October 25, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I think my mother said it best, “The Depression fucked a lot of people up.” That being said after she and I went through her MIL’s house and my grandmother’s. We threw away dumpster lodes of old crusty (vintage?!!!) wrapping paper, scraps of polyester fabric too small to make a Barbie sock, and about 5 balls of rubber bands from the newspapers that had melted together with time. Not to mention about 400 cottage cheese tubs. Sigh.
October 25, 2011 at 8:16 pm
LOADS, dammit, not lodes….maybe thinking of ‘motherlode’? Geez.
October 25, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Oh, yeah, MsD! The hundreds of rubber bands that had either morphed into goo or were so brittle that they poofed into powder as soon as they were stretched in the slightest! Did you have lots of pencils that had been sharpened down to 1/2 inch stubs?
October 25, 2011 at 10:07 pm
To be fair, that cotton from medicine bottles is perfect for re-wadding Zippo lighters. As someone who has ~500 of them, that could come in handy.
October 26, 2011 at 1:45 am
angel drawers – just put it on Etsy with a picture of a nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string, and it’ll be selling like hotcakes!
October 26, 2011 at 2:58 am
Skantily, I feel your pain. I have helped clean out my grandparents’ house and a few years back, helped my parents clean out their garage. It was disturbing in so many ways, yet we doggedly got it done.
Y’know, if this isn’t weird, maybe you could post your general location and contact info, and maybe some fine Regretsian would be interested in helping you out. I certainly would, as I’m unworking right now. A totally disinterested outsider can really help make those tough “keep/donate/toss” decisions easier. So yeah, if you’re in the Seattle area, I’m your huckleberry!
October 26, 2011 at 12:06 pm
My basic plan for clearing my Mum’s, when she finally goes is “torch the place”.
I know when it really happens I’ll be carefully sorting through 1/2 inch pencil stubs like everyone else who’s responded to skantily clad, here – but it doesn’t half help me cope with the incipient panic, to pretend that’s not the case.
October 25, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I paid 250 dollars to have a dumpster parked and then tow away a houseful of vintage junk. Based on these pictures and rates, I could have uploaded cell phone pix of the contents and maybe walked away with a couple of thousand dollars.
If there were any suckers out there, of course.
October 26, 2011 at 2:08 am
There always are. Say some of that shit’s haunted by sexy genie ghosts that will being wealth.
October 25, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Double Damn!! When my Gram died we just got a giant green dumpster & tossed over 90 years of potential sale items. Just imagine what I could have gotten for my greatgrandmother’s vintage, steampunk hospital bed that was raised & lowered with a crank! Not to mention the collection of plungers in a variety of sizes (still trying to figure those out.) I am so depressed that I must drink extra tonight
October 25, 2011 at 10:08 pm
One for the sink, one for the old cast iron tub with the claw feet, one for the terlet?
October 26, 2011 at 5:33 am
*squint* “Terlet?” You wouldn’t happen to have relatives from Ballmer, would you? I’m a Merlin girl myself.
October 26, 2011 at 6:49 am
No, I’m a Simpsons fan.
October 26, 2011 at 1:14 pm
That’s how my Italian-born dad would say it and he grew up in Brooklyn. And when we moved to Queens, we heated our house with erl.
October 26, 2011 at 1:46 pm
We look out the winders while warshing things in the zink.
October 25, 2011 at 12:51 pm
I have a vintage empty Keebler Fudge Shoppe box right here on my desk, if anyone is interested. I’ve also got two broken rosaries in my top drawer, but I’m asking for more on those because they’re art pieces. This repurposed bobby pin/ear cleaner is totally up for grabs, though.
October 25, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Hey, I could totally spruce those broken rosaries up for you…I might even give them back when I’m done!
October 25, 2011 at 1:32 pm
If you fix them, how will they symbolize the shattered faith of millions of disillusioned Catholics? Use your head, a whole rosary I could sell for maybe 15 bucks. A rosary of broken dreams? 150, minimum.
October 25, 2011 at 1:58 pm
OMG OMG OMG! I am one—I am one of those millions of disillusioned Catholics and now I desperately want that rosary. I don’t care that I never was devout, that I never took the whole thing seriously, and that I stopped attending Mass during the Carter Administration. DAMN YOU, NOW I MUST HAVE THAT ROSARY!
October 25, 2011 at 3:12 pm
500,000 dollars, please. You can’t put a price on spiritual healing. Unless it’s 500,000 dollars.
October 25, 2011 at 3:17 pm
How much are they paying for a pint of blood these days? I thought it appropriate I sell my blood for this rosary.
October 25, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Personally, I prefer a Bic pencap for the removal of earwax. It has a nice cup shape but with a sharp edge to really improve the scraping required in the ear canal. Also, it isn’t long enough to actually get too far into the ear, so it’s perfectly safe!
October 25, 2011 at 1:04 pm
It’s only “handmade” if you enhanced it yourself with chew marks though.
October 25, 2011 at 1:30 pm
You had me at “scraping required in the ear canal.”
October 25, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Huh, I didn’t know my brother was logging into the forums here. He’s been using those pen caps for years.
October 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm
My brother uses any object that will fit in his ear canal to clean his ears. I shudder in horror just thinking about it.
October 25, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Other people do that? I feel like I’ve come home. I love you fat, jealous, loser, ear-scraping fuckers.
October 25, 2011 at 3:52 pm
And when you hit just the right spot, it’s like an “ear-gasm”.
October 25, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Ever have your ears flushed by a nurse? Best. Feeling. Ever. Plus, it gets rid of all that pesky wax build-up.
October 26, 2011 at 1:12 am
The whole experience would be enhanced if he or she were hot and wearing a sexy outfit.
October 26, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Yes & apparently it’s not normal to giggle throughout the procedure.
I don’t know what the supposedly normal response to being tickled on the inside of the head is, she didn’t say.
October 25, 2011 at 6:20 pm
God, reading this whole thing made me remember I need to clean out my ears.
And made me realize that my left ear hurts a little.
October 25, 2011 at 7:14 pm
I’ve been using those to clean under my nails since middle school, but I never considered they might be useful for other bodily crud! I’ve been enlightened!
October 26, 2011 at 1:16 am
This is sort of a non-sequitor but I am suddenly reminded of the time I went out to breakfast with family, and my younger brother-in-law picked up a toothpick to use when he was finished eating. Halfway through the meal he was getting ready to use it when he noticed my OTHER brother-in-law had picked said toothpick up and was using it to clean his fingernails.
October 26, 2011 at 1:47 am
That’s no big deal, it’s when you realize you’re cleaning your teeth with the one that your brother-in-law was using on his fingernails that it becomes a problem.
October 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm
We could all get together and start a shop! I’ve got:
-Enough empty wine and booze bottles to fill a DIY Lamps Plus
-Plastic hangers, wooden hangers, metal hangers, and,maybe I’m not sure, resin hangers
-A jar filled with used nails, mostly in L or J shape; perfect for a person looking for a birthday present for someone named LJ
-A fitted red sheet with a big hole at one end so you could slip it over your head and go as the pope to your Halloween party
-Assorted shades of dryer lint – create your own rainbow!
-A Camel cigarette pack filled with 20 Camel cigarette butts (love that post-structuralist irony, don’t you?)
-4 Bass loafer shoe boxers that could be re-purposed into a fishing tackle box for that hipster angler
Let’s make some money!
October 25, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Do you cut your nails in L or J shapes or do they grow that way?
October 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm
That kind of nail I could never part with; they are precious to me and are sealed in amber for future cloning purposes.
October 25, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Does this mean the KFC bag was on the front page?
October 25, 2011 at 12:52 pm
I thought the toys were ketchup and mustard packets, until I took a second look.
October 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm
At least those would have been marginally useful. Provided they weren’t from the 1980s, which they probably were, so never mind.
October 25, 2011 at 2:40 pm
My first thought was that they were those little sample packets of lube, so I guess that says something about what goes on in my head.
October 25, 2011 at 4:18 pm
But a lot of them are Chick-Fil-A Bible-based toys, so they’re not even as much fun as condiment packets.
Love Chick-Fil-A, but they should just pack it up when it comes to the worthless kiddie crap. They’re almost as bad as Wendy’s or Subway in that department.
October 25, 2011 at 5:45 pm
I’m hyperventilating over the amount of money I could have gotten for my sons Happy Meal Toys. They introduced them just about the time they were old enough to be attracted to fast food, and they didn’t give up on wanting one of everything new till they finally got into Middle School.
Plus, since I had twins, I had duplicates of everything. And the early Happy Meal toys were pretty sturdy-They just turned 31 on Monday, and we still occasionally run across one that’s intact and works
October 25, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I don’t know, every time I’ve gotten a kids’ meal there it’s had a book in it. And some of them were really legit, like Beatrix Potter.
I’ve never seen any Bible toys. It seems like they mostly have semi-educational things, which I appreciate.
October 25, 2011 at 9:19 pm
What are Bible-based toys. Other than a children’s Bible or a toy Noah’s ark I’m lost. I’m picturing action figures: JC with healing hands grips and a as basket of loaves and fishes, repenting Paul on his knees, Judas – comes with 30 pieces of silver & his own noose.
Oh dear, I’m going to Hell, aren’t I?
October 25, 2011 at 9:22 pm
Go watch some Moral Orel eps online, AB…all sorts of Bible-based foolishness. Orel has action figures that include Paul crucified upside-down.
October 25, 2011 at 9:39 pm
I’ll have to take a look.
October 26, 2011 at 2:35 am
Please, PLEASE tell me they have a scratch n’ sniff zombie Lazarus.
October 25, 2011 at 12:52 pm
Now we don’t even need to stack the shit up or glue it together any more? The bar is getting too low.
October 25, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Subterranean even.
October 25, 2011 at 12:53 pm
“orville redenbachers…great to eat and great at holding the page for you in that blank book you never get around to reading.”
So useful!
October 25, 2011 at 1:04 pm
“a great little gift”
October 25, 2011 at 1:21 pm
“for the guy who has nothing”
October 25, 2011 at 5:46 pm
“except one book”
October 25, 2011 at 2:34 pm
not even a straight edge cut even, how lazy can you get and still expect to sell your shit? i guess i should start selling every random scrap of paper or soda straw i use for a book mark too.
October 25, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Really? I usually use bits of toilet paper, since I’m hereditarily incapable of urinating or defecating without literary assistance, thus most of my books wind up in the bathroom at some point.
Translation: I can’t poop without a book and neither can my Dad.
October 25, 2011 at 3:25 pm
I love finding out I’m not the only one. I, too, cannot poop without reading something. In the event of the emergency I’ll even settle for the back of the air freshener can.
October 25, 2011 at 3:30 pm
Mike, is that you? I didn’t know you read Regretsy! (my guy has an entire library on top of the toilet tank, and uses TP for a bookmark, so I’m pretty sure you are him)
October 26, 2011 at 1:22 pm
If I get desperate enough for entertainment, I’ll read my husband’s car magazines (OMG BORING.) He has a pile at least a foot deep, within arm’s length.
Or, better yet, I’ll pick out a nice long word on the cover, like carburetor, and see how many words I can make out of the letters.
Sad, I know.
October 25, 2011 at 9:25 pm
The best part is that it isn’t even cut straight.
And some of my friends have thought it’s silly that I save pieces of nice ribbon (like tied atop a gift basket or something) to use as bookmarks.
October 26, 2011 at 1:21 am
Well I for one will be purchasing it to add to my bookmark collection*
*I lied. Not about the bookmark collection, but about buying it. I already made one from the box in my cupboard. Is that stealing intellectual property?
October 25, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Nothing like a vintage space heater to burn your house down with.
October 25, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Exactly. It adds flare to any room.
October 25, 2011 at 5:47 pm
I think you spelled flame wrong.
October 25, 2011 at 1:34 pm
But it has a great industrial patina! (Rust counts as a patina, right?)
October 25, 2011 at 2:02 pm
That got my attention, too.
Copper? Brass? Yes, patina is good. Steel? Not so much.
October 25, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Oxidized copper/oxidized iron–whatevs.
October 25, 2011 at 1:47 pm
At the risk of being down-thumbed, I have to say that the fan/space heater is at least a legitimate collector’s item. You might be surprised at how desirable those can be, and $25 isn’t half bad; I’ve seen many priced higher. People will either use them as-is just for decoration (not saying *I* would do this, mind), or they’ll have them professionally restored/rewired to be safe for use (now this I might do).
Seriously, you can’t beat a good, rewired vintage fan for durability. Those suckers will last fucking forever.
The part about the “flare” really was pretty awesome, though . . .
October 25, 2011 at 2:04 pm
I’m with you. I bought a ZERO desk fan off eBay a few years ago (maybe $25 plus shipping; I’m not a specific collector, but it was in great shape and would work better and for much longer than a $25 fan I could buy today) and it works well, especially if I’m tired of a few fingertips. I have a desk lamp from the 1940s (my father’s, purchased new) that I’ve seen in police stations in old noir films. Mine needs to be rewired before I’ll plug it in, and I want to bring the old plug with me and ask the electrician if he or she can reattach it with wiring that won’t add a flare to my home.
October 26, 2011 at 10:04 am
I picked up a ZERO fan at an antique shop to put in my kitchen when I lived in a tiny 1960s mobile home. My kitchen looked like a diner – black, white and red.
Still have the fan, but the trailer burned up a couple of years after I sold it, reportedly due to an electrical mishap. I think the water heater under the kitchen sink may have had a little too much of that “flare.” No one was home so no human harm was done, but I used to see a mouse occasionally when I was living there. Poor mouse. :< (…though maybe he's been "repurposed." *shudder*)
Amusingly, the newspaper reported "$17,000 in property damage." I sold the thing for $3,000. $14,000 worth of furniture/electronics/personal belongings? In 500 very "vintage" square feet of trailer? Quite possible, I suppose, but odd. Then again, at the time I lived there, I drove a car worth much more than my living space, so who am I to pass judgement!
October 25, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Well, as long as we’re doing this, McDonald’s toys are a legitimate field of collecting as well. People are usually looking for ones from the 90′s and older, though.
October 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm
True, but I don’t see anything special in this particular lot, certainly not $20 worth.
And they want – holy shit – TEN DOLLARS to ship!
So we’re talking about $1 each for these suckers. Yikes.
October 25, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Last night’s episode was amazeballs. Dude had to tunnel through his own apartment! He slept on a bench outside his building! You could smell the cat pee from the second floor!
And the Victorian-obsessed lady was a whole other level of crazy. Over $100,000 worth of damage from her hoard, and she barely batted an eye while her daughter dissolved into weeping.
Hoarders is my ultimate TV crack.
October 25, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Seconded.
October 25, 2011 at 3:45 pm
Yep, I’m in.
October 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm
AH I missed that one!!
I love Hoarders because it makes me feel so insanely clean and immaculate. My room mates are very messy and hell, the show makes them look pristine too.
October 25, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Oh god it was good. It would have been 10/10 but my sweet baboo Matt Paxton was MIA.
The Victorian lady was amazing. Dr. Robin was all “LOOK at this rat-shit encrusted, urine-stained doily that you totally bought for $0.50 at a garage sale in 1978. WHY would you want to keep this?” and Victoria’s only reply was “oh, I never noticed the…uh…holes in it before.”
AMAZING.
October 25, 2011 at 1:47 pm
One of my favorite dogs ever I named “Sweet Baboo”. I lost him due to a seizure disorder. I haven’t been able to watch the Peanuts since….
And Max can show up at my house anytime. With Mike Rowe. Should it ever happen, I know I have died and am in heaven. Or taking too many Percs.
October 25, 2011 at 4:10 pm
Sorry, Mike Rowe is at my house right now. He definitely won’t be showing up at yours anytime soon.
You can have Max. I love his attitude but he does nothing for me.
October 25, 2011 at 4:23 pm
My daughter jokes that we don’t really have to bother cleaning until Dr. Zasio knocks on the door. My standards are low, but we’re not quite at the 1-800-Got-Junk prospecting list yet.
October 25, 2011 at 5:15 pm
I just saw the episode (its up on A&E’s website already-note to self.
Honestly, how is that apartment even physically POSSIBLE?? Just the engineering of it blows my mind. Him and that lady absolutely have mental issues. He has some sort of disassociative/denial thing going on, and she… she’s flat out mental. The line about those Victorian objects being “a part of her soul” and “old friends”- WTF??
October 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm
I suspect that a lot of the elderly people either suffer from Alzheimers or untreated mental illness. I had an Aunt in California die recently, and my sister, her husband, and another one of my uncles have been cleaning out her house, and she says she’s willing to bet my aunt hadn’t thrown anything away since the 1970s. They originally thought the kitchen linoleum was black and white checked, until they started scrubbing it and discovered there was, literally, layer of dirt on it so thick they had to chip it off.
October 29, 2011 at 7:01 am
There’s a specific part of the brain that controls the urge of “I need to acquire and keep this”. When it works normally, it ensures you have some food in the house and money in the bank. When it misfires, you end up hoarding.
People who are deprived during childhood (e.g. the Great Depression generation) seem to develop this area more than those who grow up in plenty. Which makes biological sense — if your environment is one of scarcity, it’s best to be programmed to gather what you can and waste as little as possible.
Hardcore pathological hoarders are also hyper-alert to minute details of objects. We’re happy to throw away a dried-up ballpoint pen because the next one will replace it. To a hoarder, the old one is unique and can’t ever be fully replaced.
October 25, 2011 at 1:15 pm
The same way Intervention makes me look like a teetotaler when I can easily drink any of those “alcoholics” under the table.
October 25, 2011 at 10:16 pm
I love watching Intervention when I’m loaded on pain meds, its like a giant “fuck you” to the Man. Plus I just really like my pain meds.
October 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm
What about American Hoggers??
October 25, 2011 at 1:09 pm
No thank you. Guys with huge beards like the ones the old guys sport on that show give me the willies.
October 25, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Aw crap… did a new season start!?!? I love that show!
October 25, 2011 at 1:56 pm
I do, too! I’ve been watching past episodes on Netflix, since I refuse to throw my money away to the antiquated, overpriced cable company in my area and we can’t get satellite tv since my landlord doesn’t want any dishes on the building. So past shows it is!
Anyway, the show is kind of like a train wreck for me. I’m horrified by it, but I just HAVE TO LOOK!
October 25, 2011 at 2:09 pm
The A&E website has full episodes, too. Usually the current season stuff.
October 25, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Or bit torrent and usenet. I haven’t watched anything on TV in a long time.
October 25, 2011 at 2:53 pm
FluffyBunnyTurds: If you’re in the US, it’s a violation of federal law for your landlord to keep you from putting in a satellite dish. He can tell you how to attach it to the building but he can’t stop you from doing it.
Since I don’t watch much TV it’s a non issue for me.
October 25, 2011 at 3:17 pm
I didn’t know that, thanks for the information. I don’t think this is an issue I’d push with him though. He’s actually the best landlord I’ve ever had, and I’ve been a renter my entire adult life. Things need fixing, he’s right there. He charges a fair rent, keeps the property looking nice, allows pets, etc.
To be honest,it’s not really a big deal for me anyway. We use the instant streaming over the Wii for the Netflix, and haven’t run out of stuff to watch yet. Plus I’m not paying for a bunch of channels I’ll never watch, and I’m only paying a little over $20 a month for it.
October 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm
The show both makes me feel better and motivates me to clean, before I get buried in my craft materi^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hclutter.
It also stops me from going shopping after I watch shows like American Pickers.
October 25, 2011 at 1:31 pm
I watched it twice because of the doofus tunneling through acres of trash. The landlord never lost that look of HOLY FUCKING CHRIST — as he evicted Mr “I’ve never had a job because I mooched off my parents for about the last 45 fucking years” what a sorry excuse for being a lazy ass.
I thought I knew my TV history trivia and I had never heard of the famous parents -
October 25, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I’m surprised the landlord allowed it to go on as long as it had. You’d think with neighbor complaints, he’d be right on top of it. I’m sure there are fire or health codes (especially in NYC) that were violated because of the apartment that he’d be afraid of getting fined for.
October 25, 2011 at 2:32 pm
It’s not a terrific building— no elevator and horrible little hallways – mr slumlord breaks lots of rules
October 25, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Then why on earth would he sign a waiver to let it be filmed on TV? Seems like a good way to get busted by the authorities and condemned.
October 25, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Love Hoarders…but every time I hear ‘the hoarde’ I think of Left 4 Dead.
Zombies and empty soda bottle piled up to the ceiling…that would rock!
October 25, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I think of WoW for The Horde.
…Actually, that’s a lie, the FIRST thing I think of is “I am cleaning my living room RIGHT NOW.”
October 25, 2011 at 3:22 pm
TV crack indeed. There was a recent rerun with a woman who failed to get her stuff cleared out because she was saving it for her “art”. I knew she was doomed when the announcer said, “She realized she could use these broken pieces to make her altered art.” Julie in Englewood, CO, (add sing-songy voice here) bet she’s got an Etsy shop.
I could watch Matt Paxton all day, I wish he had his own show. One of my favorite Matt quotes, “We’re all four or five bad decisions away from pooping in a bucket.” Some are closer, I think. That might be like degrees of Kevin Bacon – how many degrees away from pooping in a bucket are you?
October 25, 2011 at 9:33 pm
He was supposed to be having a show (he has a FB page if you’re interested), but I guess it didn’t pan out, because there seems to be a totally different show with the same title.
Anyway, he has a podcast that will be starting up sometime next month, I think, called (aptly) “5 Decisions Away.”
(oh, and speaking of FB, “The Possum from Hoarders” has his own page…I’m a fan LOL.)
October 25, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Did you catch the part where her son was collecting stuff that he could sell? He said it was for garage sales, but come on, you know some of that crap will end up on Etsy.
October 25, 2011 at 6:46 pm
I’ve been afraid to watch it. Either I see that I’m nowhere near as bad, and feel justified hunkering down in my packratty den of sloth, or I’ll feel compelled to go on a mad cleaning binge. Lose-lose for me, alas.
October 25, 2011 at 12:56 pm
“we are not sure what this ball is made of”
I’m going to venture a guess and say bullshit.
October 25, 2011 at 1:42 pm
You don’t want to know….
October 25, 2011 at 8:20 pm
SURELY that is Stephen King’s ‘The Raft’. I mean…surely.
October 26, 2011 at 8:55 pm
…Tasha Yar?
October 25, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Taking pictures of garbage and writing lame descriptions is considered an art form. The more you know.
October 25, 2011 at 12:57 pm
$6 SHIPPING on that grease stained bag? DEAL!
October 25, 2011 at 9:12 pm
As long as you’re not international. That’s the kind of precious, patriotic memorabilia that needs to stay in the US, I guess. Since surely shipping a piece of paper is not too difficult for this seller to achieve…
October 25, 2011 at 9:34 pm
What ya wanna bet it’s just shipped in a plain old paper envelope?
October 25, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Actually I think the medical supplies are pretty neat. The kind of thing you could give a retired nurse? maybe?
Make up some story about how a little girl was stabbed by her drunken father and ran to the cottage for shelter, these being the only medical equipment on hand. She died that day, and ever since the seller came into possession of these vintage medical supplies, strange things have been happening…
Man I’m good at pitching a sale.
October 25, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Just be careful that the retiring nurse doesn’t jab you with a hypodermic needle and inject air bubbles into your veins.
October 25, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Don’t forget that it’s photographed on weathered barn wood — AND an oh-so-delicate handkerchief.
Gotta love the props…
October 25, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I’m an unretired nurse and when I looked at those “medical supplies” my thoughts went to “thank “Bob” I had a tetanus shot.
Feel free to give me a WalMart gift card instead. Their pharmacy has the $9 Levitra.
October 25, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Just last month, we cleaned out the cupboard in the bathroom because it was being gutted (long story – you don’t really give a crap), and we THREW AWAY a small fortune in expired chloraseptic, rusty tin bandaid boxes, foot powder and calamine lotion from the 1960s. I could have taken the week off from work with the proceeds from that.
But I still have a plastic bag from a SF convention from the 1970′s with a drawing of Spock on it. Nobody’s getting that until AFTER I die!
October 26, 2011 at 12:15 pm
When I bought this house, the medicine cabinet had an old band-aids tin full of teeth.
And some of the teeth looked like they had had the gold fillings taken out. O.O
October 29, 2011 at 7:06 am
When my father had his teeth extracted, he got all the gold fillings out and melted them together to make a “nugget”. I still have that nugget, actually.
October 25, 2011 at 12:59 pm
I think I already said this on the facebook page once, but THIS is my solution for the houseful of broken crap my Grandfather will inevitably leave for us.
Wood-paneled TV’s, busted lawnmowers, piles of old Chatelaine magazines, asbestos-filled ceiling tiles scavenged from the Walmart renovation….All tagged “Vintage” on Etsy. Genius.
October 25, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Who buys that many kids’ meals and doesn’t let their kid play with the fucking toy? They already ate the shitty food, they stopped pestering you, and you got a Double Stack too–let them have the Sponge Bob toy, fer Chrissakes! Does Monet Parham have an Etsy account??
October 25, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Some of the toys have been opened and taped back in those very valuable plastic bags.
All I can think is it’s one of those crazy dieters buying the kids meal for the small portions, and then wondering how they can pay for those tiny boxes of food.
October 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm
My kid insists on them but doesn’t want the toys. I save ‘em and send big boxes to a special ed teacher friend who uses them as prizes in the classroom. CLEARLY I should be selling them on Etsy; wtf am I thinking, sending them to a teacher for FREE when I could be funding the next bottle of vodka?
October 25, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I have a small stash of happy meal toys because one of my friends convinced me they would be really valuable one day. But I don’t have enough to qualify for hoarders – in case you were wondering.
October 25, 2011 at 1:41 pm
I’m 5’2″, so the kid’s meals are a good “large snack/small meal” for me. I have a small box of the damned things waiting for a trip down to goodwill.
Last box I put on my porch with a “free” sign – kids cleaned it out in a couple of days.
I never knew I was sitting on untapped cash!!
October 25, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Save yourself a trip to Goodwill–give them out at Halloween.
October 25, 2011 at 10:10 pm
I did that one year. I mostly had the little books you get at Chic-fil-a, and one little boy ran down the street yelling, “Mama, mama, I got a book!” It was kind of awesome.
October 25, 2011 at 4:28 pm
My former brother-in-law used to go through McDonald’s every day for lunch, and order a kid’s meal. Then he’d tell them to Super Size it. It was his one genius moment in life, or so he thought.
Guy’s skinny as a rail, too. I don’t understand how anyone could eat a bucket of fries and drink a barrel of coke every day for lunch and still weigh about 47 lbs.
October 25, 2011 at 7:16 pm
Tapeworm?
October 29, 2011 at 7:11 am
My husband used to work with somebody who had the metabolism of a hummingbird. He made a loaf’s worth of sandwiches to bring to work every day, just to see him through the time between a big cooked breakfast and a big cooked lunch. Skinny as a whippet and always running out of energy — he used to grab naps on top of the cabinets throughout the day.
October 25, 2011 at 4:36 pm
I know people who buy them and save them in case they someday become valuable. May God help them.
October 25, 2011 at 1:01 pm
I reaaaalllly want the bookmark! If only I could work a pair of scissors and cut a piece of cardboard from a box myself. I just don’t know how these people come up with this stuff. talk about inspiring!
October 25, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I know; the sheer craftsmanship that displays is phenomenal. Totally puts my torn-paper bookmarks to shame.
October 25, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Bookmarks are the only thing my business cards get used for anymore.
October 26, 2011 at 7:59 am
I use small stacks of mine to keep furniture and large appliances from wobbling on uneven floors
October 25, 2011 at 1:09 pm
I’m thinking when I figure out how to work scissors, I’m gonna get me some of those fancy ones that cut patterns. Then we’ll see who’s making the big money
October 25, 2011 at 2:02 pm
Those fancy ones are totally worth learning to uses scissors! One of these days, I’m going to wait until my hubby is sleeping and give him a haircut with a pair.
October 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm
why did they put the toys back in the bags? I don’t understand so much that it makes my heat hurt.
October 25, 2011 at 1:03 pm
*head
October 25, 2011 at 1:59 pm
They are “Re-Viginized”; after all, it *IS* in the original package! Much more desireable!
October 25, 2011 at 2:48 pm
So the bags are resealed to appear like new? I know a woman who had that done twice. Funny how the second husband never questioned why his wife-who’d-had-an-annulment was still a virgin.
October 25, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Isn’t that one of the reason for granting an annulment? That the marriage was never consummated?
October 26, 2011 at 2:26 am
Why some people want it to hurt all over again completely mystifies me.
October 26, 2011 at 9:38 am
@Rana, that’s one of the reasons, but the first marriage had been consummated. My aunt figured that a virgin would be a more valuable commodity on the market. This was the 1970s, so perhaps it was, outside of certain religions then and now.
October 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm
“Flare” is not something you want in a space heater…
October 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm
That is the best part of the whole post: “flare”!
October 25, 2011 at 1:05 pm
They’ve taken down the bookmark one so I can’t enlarge it to be sure, but it’s a square of cardboard cut from a non-vintage box, yes? And it’s $2? Because tomorrow’s recycling day and I came THIS CLOSE to throwing out so much inventory.
October 25, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Not only that, but it doesn’t look like they could operate a pair of scissors well. Perhaps it’s just the angle (being very generous here), but the damn thing looked more crooked than the shit my 7 year old comes home with.
October 25, 2011 at 4:03 pm
That makes it folksy
October 25, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Its imperfections make it perfect. <3
October 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm
And here I’ve always been a little embarrassed about the knife sheaths I made from old cereal boxes. I should have been selling them on Etsy…
…after I’d registered the design with the Alliance for the Protection of Internet Copyrights, that is.
October 25, 2011 at 1:06 pm
“Patina”!!!!! Is that what we’re calling rust/dust/schmutz these days?
And I laughed so hard at the old chicken bag, I may have added some “patina” to my unders.
October 25, 2011 at 1:10 pm
ROFLMAO
October 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm
At least she has hoarded stuff that doesn’t go bad and stink up the place.(I hope)The smell is the worst part. I have seen how bad hoarding can get. The mice and rat fights are loud, the bugs multilpy daily, and for some reason that three year old carton of eggs in the corner just can’t be let go. It is a serious compulsion that starts out small, and then one day, BAM! You’re gonna need 6 dumpsters, face masks, and biohazard suits to get rid of it all.
October 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I now feel like I’m missing out on huge revenue when I force my daughter to clean her room! Whatever am I thinking? I know, I’ll go get a knife and start cutting up my tidy cat container for bookmarks!
October 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Hot glue the toys to the fan, then we’ll talk.
October 26, 2011 at 1:36 pm
Oooh that reminds me of a former coworker, nice guy, very creative. He was bored with his corded phone at the office cubicle (it was the 80′s…) and he hot glued tiny toys (about a half-inch to an inch in size) to the entire phone. Number keys, the entire body of the phone. You had to use it very carefully. It was pretty cool!
October 26, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Then it’ll be designer, and much more expensive.
October 25, 2011 at 1:16 pm
“Complete with greasy stains!”
I don’t care what you say that shit made me LOL. After visiting the seller’s shop I have no other choice than to think they are in on the joke, check out this tagline:
“An inspired moment creates a spontaneous urge”
My mind is running wild with exceptional endings to that phrase.
October 25, 2011 at 1:16 pm
On a related repurposing cardboard boxes, but for a good cause and not ridiculous fuckery note, I heard today that Cheerios has teamed with the USO to send “cheer” to the troops… I guess Cheerios boxes will be marked so you can cut out the “Cheer” from the front of the box to mail as a postcard to the troops… the address is printed on the inside of the box. Just add message and postage.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Cheerios-and-the-USO-Team-Up-bw-1465782493.html?x=0&.v=1
October 25, 2011 at 1:42 pm
I repurposed a Cheerios box the other day. I made it into a drop spindle. A crap pencil, cardboard from the box (the remainder was recycled, natch), tape, and a paperclip, and now I’m plying some yarn with it.
Thanks for sharing that. I hadn’t heard. I can’t eat Cheerios, but my mom and sister eat them like there’s no tomorrow, so I bet we can send cheer to loads of soldiers.
October 25, 2011 at 1:57 pm
I’m chain-plying on a handmade, multiple exotic woods, finely balanced drop spindle. ON hand-painted wool I bought on Etsy.
I feel so snobby right now.
October 26, 2011 at 10:11 am
I made my own drop spindle, that I call my “Disco Stick” It’s basically a stained stick with 2 CD’s and a glitter disco ball. I like N plying, but I prefer Andean plying myself.
October 25, 2011 at 1:17 pm
I have this feeling that someone might actually consider the KFC bag to be a valuable collectible.
October 25, 2011 at 1:21 pm
If they do, they should have gotten more of them last year when they were current. Or was it the year before last?
(“Vintage” marcom isn’t my strong suit. Must need a different vintage.)
October 25, 2011 at 1:25 pm
we could scrape up the money and get it ourselves. with a pair of scissors we could totally make a crap load of VINTAGE bookmarks and sell em’ for a profit. We could even charge more for the ones that have the stains
October 25, 2011 at 1:32 pm
I’m surprised they don’t emphasize that it IS vintage because the corporation isn’t Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore—it’s KFC. And I don’t think the Colonel is on the packaging, either, but I’m not positive of that.
October 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm
That colonel portrait is from a few makeovers ago too. I think it likely is a few decades old, but with it not being mint it’s likely not too valuable.
October 25, 2011 at 1:22 pm
I was just wondering through the city dump wondering when someone would upcycle these found objects. oh, and the dead bird.
October 25, 2011 at 2:23 pm
*wandering
October 25, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I weep for my sanity after seeing these items, but not for the dead bird….
October 25, 2011 at 1:41 pm
Vintage stains for sale!
No soup for you! Get out of line!
October 25, 2011 at 1:43 pm
ok. rust is now “patina”. While I suppose technically true… WTF?! This opens up a whole new area of finishes….
October 25, 2011 at 1:54 pm
How the fuck would a billiard ball make a good book end?!?! It’s round!
October 25, 2011 at 2:04 pm
Looks like someone’s not wearing their fuckery hat. You glue barnwood to it of course.
October 25, 2011 at 5:38 pm
The worse thing someone actually bought the pool ball. I pray for these poor souls sometimes
October 25, 2011 at 1:58 pm
And speaking of Hoarders, watched an episode last night. This woman had no heat or running water in her house (in Michigan…in the winter) and the trash was piled at least two feet high all throughout her house. Because she had to running water she was shitting in plastic grocery bags and then leaving them all over the house. I almost puked watching that episode.
October 25, 2011 at 3:36 pm
She was the one with the pee jars, yes? That one tested my ability to hold my gag reflex in check.
October 25, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Yes! The apple juice bottles full of piss. YUM-E! And then her son stepped on one of the bags of poo and tore it open.
October 25, 2011 at 4:13 pm
WHY APPLE!? of all the bottles in the world! That’s just a misunderstanding waiting to happen. UGH
October 25, 2011 at 7:20 pm
I guess she was drinking all that apple juice; with no running water, the liquid for the pee had to come from somewhere!
October 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Ew. I’m well on my way to being a hoarder (it runs in the family), and even I wouldn’t want that crap… it just doesn’t go with my empty egg cartons, cereal boxes, and paper towel tubes. At least all the crap I save can be reused, especially with my daycare kiddos.
October 25, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Most of this shit is barely worthy of Craig’s List.
Personally, I just sold an old cat carrier and a kids’ bicycle on Craig’s List, so I’m feeling rather cleansed…
October 25, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I also found this in the KFC bag store: http://www.etsy.com/listing/54600284/carpenters-dream-coat-rack-wall-hanging
I suppose it’s flat as a board and never been nailed?
October 25, 2011 at 4:14 pm
WOW, $350… that seller has a bit too much confidence.
October 25, 2011 at 4:39 pm
THERE ISN’T ENOUGH BARNWOOD IN THAT THING TO MAKE IT WORTH $35, MUCH LESS $350
Gods, sorry for shouting, but Gods….
October 25, 2011 at 7:22 pm
What gets me about it is that the seller basically says you can’t use it–it’s not strong enough for anything other than coats, but if you hang coats on it, they’ll get ruined by the grime. o.O
October 26, 2011 at 8:14 am
What I love about this item is the TOTAL IRONY!
It has a total of SIX levels on it, none of which are mounted in a position to be useful when leveling the item for hanging!
October 25, 2011 at 2:46 pm
You can use a billiard ball as a bookend? I thought round things roll off shelves…
October 26, 2011 at 11:30 pm
In a hoarder house, everything is sticky, so the rolling is SO not a problem.
October 25, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Regresty, you have rewired my brain. We had a massive clean out on the weekend and more than once, I thought I should sell some of the crap on etsy. I do take my hat off to some of the sellers, since in my view, if you can get someone to part with their cash for a rusty fan heater you found in your shed,or some absurd outfit made from the remains of granny’s macrame out planter- the important thing is that their cash is now your cash. I wonder if its too late to catch the garbage truck…
October 25, 2011 at 3:07 pm
*owl planter
October 25, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
October 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Careful – the last time Helen mocked one of those LARPers, he got so offended that he divorced his wife, remember? Although I guess that was a win for her in the long run, so…
October 25, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Actually, those are pretty darn awesome. You have any idea how difficult it is to embroider suede? Even if that’s imitation suede, the soles are real leather and that’s a bitch to shove a needle through.
October 25, 2011 at 3:37 pm
“It’s basically two different bookmarks in one”. What the serious fuck? How is ONE bookmark “basically two different bookmarks”?
How many books can you mark your place in with this? One? It’s ONE GODDAMN BOOKMARK. And it’s a shitty one at that.
October 25, 2011 at 3:46 pm
BellyBillboard, I know I’ve said this before, but I really do love you.
October 25, 2011 at 4:16 pm
I was wondering that. Is it because you can flip it over? Doesn’t every bookmark have that function?
October 26, 2011 at 9:53 pm
I’d pay extra for a single-sided bookmark.
October 25, 2011 at 4:23 pm
If you tear it in half, you can use it in two different books. They could…sell them as a pair….
My brain hurts.
October 29, 2011 at 7:16 am
You can use it portrait or landscape, depending on the format of the book you’re reading. I’m so impressed.
October 25, 2011 at 3:40 pm
True story- I have paper baking cups that date back to the late 1960s. My mom gave them to me ages ago and I can’t make myself use them for fear of them disintegrating upon use and I can’t bring myself to throw them away because of their age and nostalgia.
NOW I CAN SELL THEM!
Don’t worry, kids, Momma’s got a solution to your tuition problems!
October 26, 2011 at 10:31 am
Those might actually be pretty cool for food-themed scrapbooking, honestly.
October 25, 2011 at 3:42 pm
I have an EMPTY Kroger Waffle box in my freezer. I came home from work – car on fritz so I got a ride – no lunch today because I forgot to bring it – really wanted waffles. It was a full box when I put it in there. Now it is empty. Daughter in law: “Oh, they were in there a while and you didn’t eat them, did you want them?” No – I just buy them so you will eat them and leave the fucking empty box in there. I’ll just eat bread.
Sorry – I am pissed.
October 25, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Make that bitch go fetch you waffles!
October 25, 2011 at 4:19 pm
And make that bitch take out the fucking trash!
October 25, 2011 at 6:09 pm
…Or at least make you some damn 2-sided bookmarks!
December 30, 2011 at 8:29 am
savvysabby – you won 1,000 swagbucks right now
December 30 at 10:15 a.m. central time.
October 25, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I have some freshly used Q-tips with some “vintage” earwax.
A used paper bowl, dirty plastic fork and not yet rotting crust edge from apple pie included. “It doesn’t smell!”
A mostly used tube of sunblock from last year. Perfect for those staged photos for 2010 you forgot to take of yourself relaxing in the backyard in the sun.
A dozen empty toilet paper roll tubes. Essential item needed for a toilet paper roll Katchina doll. Perfect for Thanksgiving Native American themed decor for the children’s table.
A partially used pencil, crappy, white, crumbling eraser had disintegrated already, but perfect for jabbing your own eyes out of you can’t bear to keep reading my list of old, partially used junk I can’t bear to throw out (until the garbage truck comes later this week).
October 25, 2011 at 4:10 pm
If anyone gives me a piece of packaging as a “great little gift,” I will throw a dirty billiard ball at their head.
October 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm
I love how the listing for the fan specifies that it heats up well AND the “cooling system” works, too.
See, the “cooling system” of which they speak is what the rest of us would call a FAN. The heating function is the fan plus a thingy that heats up the air. So saying “the heating works, and the cooling system does, too!” is kinda like saying “My kid knows how to jump rope, and also she can hop up and down in place with her arms at her sides!” one of these things automatically implies the other.
October 25, 2011 at 4:50 pm
My grandfather has an old tv in storage, one of the first colour televisions, that he built by hand.
One of the rare instances that something could be sold on Etsy as vintage and handmade.
October 25, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I should say, one of the rare instances that something could legitimately be sold on Etsy as both vintage and handmade.
October 25, 2011 at 4:54 pm
some times i have a really hard time telling the difference between the etsy fuckery and your mockery.
October 25, 2011 at 7:37 pm
Regretsy is like the Onion, only for crafts.
October 25, 2011 at 5:49 pm
The KFC bag ships to the US only? Oh no! How will us Canadians get ahold of greasy bags that once contained chicken for over 20 dollars? C’mon, am I going to have to actually buy KFC?
October 25, 2011 at 6:02 pm
You forgot the animal carcasses and/or up-cycled items made from animal carcasses.
October 25, 2011 at 6:32 pm
They haven’t quite cracked into those layers yet.
October 25, 2011 at 10:16 pm
OMG!! Animal carcasses are sustainable, organic and green! Knit a cowl for one, photograph it on a worn wooden background, and I can pretty much guarantee a front-page feature.
October 25, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Also, there should an exclusive “Hoarders” fragrance that conveys the unique scent that only a hoarded house can produce. Can’t think of a name for it, though. Eau de … ?
October 25, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Cesspool? Georgia paper mill? Hobo wedding?
October 26, 2011 at 12:29 am
I was thinking the smell of old cockroach shit.
October 26, 2011 at 2:56 am
Entropy. Or “Entropie” if you wanna class it up.
October 26, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Eau de Toutes!
I’m sure Dallitude will be happy to correct any grandmatical errors.
October 25, 2011 at 6:18 pm
October 25, 2011 at 6:41 pm
about the medicine cabinet please let that be just rust and nothing more …. in fact i do not even want to know….
October 25, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Speaking of shameless hoarding on Etsy. . . I’ve had this listing logged in my favs for months: http://www.etsy.com/listing/63745323/hoarder-dollhouse It’s pretty priceless–and is probably an acurate representation of what my house will look like 40 years from now ;oP
October 25, 2011 at 9:36 pm
I’m confused. Cecil is dead right? Then why are those a woman’s shoes (& legs) sticking out from under that pile in the attic?
October 26, 2011 at 9:48 am
Cecil invited a slattern into his marriage bed when the wife was out of the house.
Wife came home early.
Cecil is died…suddenly.
No one cries for a dead and missing slattern.
October 25, 2011 at 10:42 pm
I can’t even begin to say how much I love this dollhouse!!
October 25, 2011 at 7:51 pm
What I find frightening is that the shop with the KFC bag has over 3400 admirers….WTF???
October 25, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Just imagine the number if it still had the odor.
October 25, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Does “The Only Sane Person In The World” have their own Facebook page? Because they should. I’d do it, but I’m only marginally sane at the best of times.
October 25, 2011 at 10:01 pm
@idrewacat – Trust me… No sane nurse out there wants “vintage” bandaids as a gift. It would be the equivalent of giving a plumber a hot, stinking pile of shit on a paper plate. Plus, at least to an ER nurse, the bandaide is the most useless piece of crap ever invented. I don’t waste my time with wounds that can be fixed with a bandaide.
October 26, 2011 at 12:31 am
Awwwww, you forget about the old crack addict. Bring old memories and that old itch by giving them a bandaid box that looked just like the one they used to stash their junk for smoking/shooting.
October 26, 2011 at 12:46 am
Takes one to know one – So I like this comment.
October 26, 2011 at 1:11 am
“we are not sure what this ball is made of”
Nitrocellulose?
October 26, 2011 at 1:52 am
“It is PAPER.”
Noooooo shit, Sherlock.
October 26, 2011 at 7:21 am
October 26, 2011 at 8:09 am
“Smells like sugar and butt.”
- Matt Paxton, Extreme Hoarding Specialist
October 26, 2011 at 8:57 am
If any of these actually sell, I have to assume the 1% of the people who actually have disposable income are truly disposing it. Or they’re insane.
October 26, 2011 at 10:34 am
I did once sell a vintage Muppets cereal box for $50 on Ebay. Blew my mind; I’d listed it as a joke!
October 26, 2011 at 1:20 pm
You know, for $50 I really expected a nice, handwritten note with the box. It wouldn’t have killed you, you know!
*Sniff! Flounces away to dust off her Muppets cereal box.*
October 26, 2011 at 10:52 am
The KFC bag seller also posted this:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/84022922/rusty-face-electronic-image-jpeg-file?ref=v1_other_1
Just the image. The IMAGE is $8.00.
October 26, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Christ, this makes my hair hurt.
October 26, 2011 at 5:48 pm
So, I’m not kidding, I had hoarder relatives that had pretty much all of that. And more. so much more. They had to move in with a different relative because there was no longer any room for them in their own house. It was that full of stuff. Two different relatives. A father and daughter. They both had this problem. One house had the roof cave in, became condemned, and all was lost. The other house was robbed, all the valuble crap stolen, the rest of the crap ruined from water damage that came in through the broken-in windows. Became condemned. All was lost.
The relatives died.
I miss them AND their weird crap.
October 26, 2011 at 10:59 pm
My place is full of stuff, to the point where I have to put things on empty spaces on the floor because there’s no other room, LOL…and I keep thinking, holy hell, I could Etsy all this and make a mint!