NAKED CITY: THE BORN AGAIN GARAGE SALE

The success of last weekend’s National Garage Sale Trail has lifted the image and significance of the humble garage sale to new heights. During the weekend a  reported 7,000 homes and businesses across the country dug deep to purge their households and premises of unwanted items, displayed in front yards and on footpaths from Sydney to Perth.

The public responded in great numbers snapping up bargain clothes, shoes, kitchenalia, old vinyl, sporting goods and all the usual garage sale knick knacks and novelty items. Whilst the sellers benefited financially from the exercise it was more an exercise in community recycling and a sharing of surplus items, than a purely mercenary clean out.

The garage sale has of course been around for decades and many have made a profession out of trawling from one garage sale to the next, looking for that bargain item to stick up on eBay or resell at a considerable profit. Anybody who has ever advertised a garage sale, either in their local rag or on nearby lamp posts will be aware of the rampaging garage sale touts who knock on your door at 7.30am hoping to get the jump on everybody else. They can be nasty, aggressive and about as unwelcome as a bunch of Mormon missionaries particularly if you are elderly or vulnerable to this kind of invasion. There’s a certain gratuitous pleasure is knocking back an offer from these garage sale goons and then selling the item at a cheaper price to somebody who looks like they really deserve it – and won’t be on-selling at the local market.

One thing that was highlighted with last weekend’s Garage Trail was that many vendors, particularly in the inner city don’t have a garage or front yard and their only option is to display their items on the footpath or nature strip. This is normally against council regulations with the City Of Sydney council slugging you $330 if you are caught offending. Luckily this bureaucratic barbarism was waived for the Trail day and a street fair atmosphere took over in many inner city suburbs. In Sydney even the Lord Mayor herself was out on the bargain prowl, no doubt scouting for cut price chokers!

Maybe it’s time for all councils to relax their regulations regarding garage sales and encourage a more frequent recycling of household goods. Surely the Garage Trail could be held more than once a year and nature strips opened up for more than the occasional dog turd or discarded cathode ray TV. The only fine that should be imposed would be one to prevent those pesky garage sale scavengers from banging on your door before breakfast demanding to peruse your motley collection of pots, pans and old Englebert Humperdinck vinyl.