Craigslist. Such an interesting concept. Actually, I really like CL and have used it a lot. A friend recommended it to me 7 years ago when I was looking for a place to live and I found it super helpful. One of the roommates I ended up meeting through CL is still one of my closest friends (and the person responsible for introducing Mr.P and I).
We sell things on CL every so often. We have season tickets to a local sports team and aren't able to attend all the games and we find CL is a great way to sell our extra tickets. We've also sold random items we don't need anymore, and bought things used as a way to save money. We've had mostly positive experiences with CL. If I'm selling something I usually have the person call me to get the address so that I can kind of size them up on the phone. If I get any kind of sketchy vibe I tell the person I'll meet them at a Starbucks. Also, if it's a man that is going to buy the item I'm selling I usually plan on meeting them at Starbucks just as a safety precaution (not that women can't be sketchy, but I'm not as uncomfortable having a woman come to my house when I'm home alone with my kids).
Since I've been working out and losing weight, I'm in the position to need new clothes that fit. Mr.P was saying last week that it would be helpful to our budget if I could sell some old stuff we aren't using to raise funds for my "new clothing" budget. That seemed fair enough so I got to work scouring the basement for things we have stashed that we just don't use anymore. The other day while the kids were napping I cleaned a few things up, took pictures, and listed my ads.
Today I had two CL transactions. The first one was this morning when I sold one of our strollers (the sit and stand one we bought for Europe - it was collecting dust and we really only use our other two strollers these days). The woman who bought the stroller had emailed back and forth with a me bit and she was perfectly nice and normal when she came by to get the stroller. We stood around chatting for a bit. In fact, as I carried it to her car for her (she is 8 months pregnant) I thought how if we were meeting under other circumstances I could see being friends with her.
The other transaction today was for our old wine fridge. We keep most of our wine cellared in the basement but we used to keep 12 really good bottles in our counter top wine fridge in the kitchen. When we got the Keurig coffee maker in the fall the wine fridge got bumped from the counter top and dumped in the basement. Late last night I got an email from a woman interested in the fridge. I emailed her back this morning and told her it was still available and that I would be home all afternoon if she wanted to come take a look. She called to get the address, and sounded nice and normal. I gave her the address and she said she'd be over in a bit. This is where things got a little odd.... An hour later she called me again and said she wasn't going to be able to come by but she was wondering if it would be OK for her friend to come get it. I said that was fine and she said she'd have him call me to arrange the time. I was a little hesitant thinking that I wasn't 100% sure about a dude coming by but I figured the item is only listed for $30 so I wasn't too concerned with being robbed or anything.
So awhile later the guy calls me up and says he will be by within the hour. A few hours go by and buddy hasn't shown up or called so I figured oh well, good thing I hadn't deleted the ad yet. Ten minutes later, he calls to say he is 10 minutes away. A half hour later dude pulls up to our house in a fancy newer luxury car. He comes up to the house and when I open the door I find he is a huge guy, the kind of guy who could mess someone up. With my phone in hand I let him in and he took a look at the fridge. He started gushing about how beautiful my kids are, and then he starts trying to hassle me on the price saying he only wants to pay $20. I told him I was firm on my price. Then he says, "OK, I'll pay you $30 but only because your kids are so good looking." Um...that was weird. I thanked him and wished him good luck as I opened the door for him. As he walked to the end of the porch lugging this awkward wine fridge, he slipped and fell down our stairs. The wine fridge flew out of his arms and landed in the grass. Poor guy landed at the bottom of the stairs (it was also pouring down rain out). He seemed a bit stunned and got up slowly. I asked him a few times if he was OK, and he said he would be fine (but seriously, watching the way he fell, I don't think he was OK, he was just trying to be tough. If I had fallen like that I would have been crying.) Because of the rain, the wine fridge was covered in mud. I offered to get him some paper towels to wipe it off, but he said no he just wanted to get out of here. He picked up the muddy fridge, and hobbled to his car, and then drove off. I'm sure he was embarrassed.
I seriously hope he is OK, falling like that can really hurt. Also, I won't lie - the thought crossed my mind - I hope he doesn't come back and try to sue us after falling on our property. Anyway, it was one of those weird situations that I felt like writing down.
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