E-mail garage sale
People exchange items locally over the InternetBy Layla Aslani
HOUGHTON - Leah Elenbaas has received children's toys, a vacuum, shoes and a bread maker all at reduced prices through her e-mail. She has also created room in her home for new items by giving away old ones online.
Elenbaas does this through the Yooper Yard Sale and Keweenaw Freecycle Yahoo groups. Freecycle groups are found throughout the world, with members posting items they are looking for or giving away to a local network. In the Copper Country, there are two Freecycle groups: KeweenawMIFreecycle and Baragacountyfreecycle. YYS is similar, except it is Upper Peninsula-wide and the items are for sale, not free. With both groups, members are encouraged to put their location and item in the subject line so others do not have to read the e-mail if they are not interested. Once a commitment is made to purchase or receive an item, the people involved negotiate the exchange.
Elenbaas said she joined the groups because she often has items she doesn't need anymore.
"I had 50 of those little baby food jars and a guy from Lake Linden picked them up," she said. "So again, you never know what people want."
She said the lists are a great way to save or make money.
"It's just really neat to find purposes for things that don't have purposes anymore," she said. "A lot of people don't have the means to put stuff on eBay or to have garage sales or they don't have the room to save. It just gives them a way to put one or two items up."
Elenbaas said she is also a member of the Lansing Freecycle group because it has heavy traffic and her downstate relatives are able to pick up items for her. She said she has a specific e-mail address she uses for the groups, so multiple messages aren't sent to her primary e-mail address. YYS Creator and Moderator Heather Hurley of Houghton said members do have an option of receiving a daily digest of the messages or only checking posts online. However, this gives bargain hunters a slight disadvantage, she said.
"A lot of popular things will get sold right away," she said. "If you're just going to the board on a whim, you're not going to see if somebody sold something until its to late."
Some group members are creative and use YYS to lessen their holiday spending, Hurley said.
"Some people are actually trading toys with each other so their kids have new toys for Christmas," she said. "For a kid, you don't need to have a new toy in a package."
Hurley said she started YYS in 2005 after she wanted to sell items but could not have a garage sale because she had a young child at home. She said over the years, the list has grown through word-of-mouth from seven messages per month to 960 messages last month. She said most of the members are from the Houghton and Marquette area.
"It's just a great resource, kind of the same idea as Freecycle, you're trying to keep things out of landfills," she said. "I think a lot of times up here people would like to have a garage sale to empty out their houses, but that's not really practical in the winter."
For more information about the groups, visit freecycle.org and yooperyardsale.net.
Layla Aslani can be reached at laslani@mininggazette.com.
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Ronnie
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11-22-08 6:43 PM
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I would like more info on this topic. How do you buy or sell items. Please email me at ronnie.dove@sbcglobal****. Thank you.
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