Yard Sale Detail

Yard sale season is drawing to a close. How do we know this? Well, if your neighborhood is typical of other suburban settings all across the country, every signpost at every intersection is marred with homemade signs advertising long since past sales from the summer.

There ought to be a law. What a sec...there is, or at least a by-law. Most municipalities have ordinances on the books concerning the staging of yard sales and similarly named events (garage sale, street sale, moving sale). Failing that, all municipalities do have by-laws concerning erecting, displaying, or altering signs.

In tough economic times, when city officials turn a blind eye to enforcing by-laws that could otherwise affect our ability to make ends meet, I think they deserve our praise. If 10% of your neighbors are out of work and resort to selling old clothes, VHS tapes, and Stephen King paperbacks out of their garage on a Sunday afternoon in order to put food on the table, any harassment from "the man" would indeed be unwarranted.

Who wants to look at this every morning?

The aftermath of these sales, however, should not be overlooked. Those with time enough to drive around the neighborhood taping unsightly signs to street posts and stapling gaudy flyers to trees certainly have time enough to remove and discard them after the sale.

Call me a fascist if you must, but signs that remain posted days after the sale has ended should be regarded the same way authorities view graffiti or litter. In essence, that's what it becomes once the sale has passed.

Planning a yard sale next summer? Make sure the detail regarding removal of your signage is not forgotten.