Archives for November 2018

I’ve really channeled my inner genius when it comes to using Craigslist. Selling and buying things are pretty straightforward. What I like most are those times I use it to help my fellow man out while helping me out.

One of the other things we wanted gone besides those two tons of rocks I sold on Craigslist was some very mature bushes growing near the fence. These things were huge.

Maybe if the previous owners planted them directly along the fence line instead of a zig zag pattern the bushes wouldn’t be as noticeable. We wanted them gone.

And while they provided privacy from our neighbors and our neighbors from us we realized we’d rather have the space for a vegetable garden. Plus, we get along with our neighbors. We don’t really see each other from that side of the house anyways.

How am I going to get rid of these things?

Craigslist of course.

This is the ad I came up with.

I posted it on a Sunday morning in the Free Stuff section and I received a text in less than an hour from someone saying they wanted all of them. And they wanted to come today to get them.

Holy Shit!! That worked.

I called the guy back, gave him my address, and he was on his way.

I was not prepared to do some digging that day and was expecting it would take a couple days to get some interest. Guess I was wrong.

Him, his wife, and their six year old daughter showed up with shovels ready to go.

Regular chit chat commenced with me telling them why we wanted them gone and he went on to say they wanted them to build a quasi privacy fence in their yard.

Turns out they lived in an older house in Rochester with a couple of acres. Somebody bought a similar yet old house next to theirs, knocked it down, and built a McMansion. One of those houses that is now the largest house on the street, looks out of place, and is gaudy.

They didn’t want to put up a fence and were looking for a cheap alternative. Hence, my bushes.

An hour later we had all five dug up.

He even helped me dig one up, dig a new hole, and drag it to a spot on the back of my property line. There was a gap between two bushes back there and I planned on moving it eventually. He said he’d be willing to help since I wasn’t charging them for the bushes.

Off to Home Depot he went to rent one of their trucks you can rent by the hour. Half an hour later he was back to load up the bushes which I helped do.

From the time I posted to the time he pulled out my driveway was less than four hours.

Talk about a win win.

And once it was done and the rocks were moved we were able to move our vegetable boxes there. Throw some mulch around them and the space looked a lot cleaner.

As you can tell from the picture there isn’t a whole lot of sun in that corner because of a giant oak tree in the middle of our yard that provides shade to most of the backyard. So we had to move the vegetable garden to the other side of the yard.

And two years has passed since the bushes were removed. Which means our kids are 3 and 4 years old now. Not babies. The space now has a sandbox and one of those Fitness Reality Ultimate Swing Sets.

My neighbors laughed when they saw me and that family digging the bushes up. Not sure if they like the current setup more as that means screaming toddlers are that much closer to their house.

There was no way in hell I was putting the swing set in the middle of the yard. Can’t be worrying about toddlers getting in the way of me playing my backyard golf course.

But what I am finding out with using Craigslist for something like this is you have to be willing to help. And if you put that in the listing I’ve found people are eager to move quickly if it solves a problem for them too. Which it did.

I’d probably have to pay a company $200 to dig them up and get rid of them. Or the same amount feeding my friends and family for help.

I’m sure I couldn’t get my friends or family together in the same time it took for that one guy and me to do all of this.

“I don’t like these rocks” said me sometime in 2015.

“Me neither” said Andrea also in 2015.

“Mulch?” says me.

“Yes, mulch” says her.

“How the hell am I going to get rid of two tons of rocks?”

Well, I figured out a way. I used Craigslist. This is how I did it.

Menace To My Backyard

There is no other explanation as to how the rocks would get into the middle of the backyard besides squirrels doing a Rucksack Challenge.

They’d get stuck in my bomb ass McLane 17-PH-10 push lawnmower. I’d step on them when walking barefoot. My two year old started to throw them. And they looked like crap.

The previous owners paid a landscaping company to lay them three inches deep, three feet wide, on all three sides of the fence line in the backyard. And they tucked them in all nice and tight around the bushes too!

My guess is rocks were better than dirt/mulch/grass because they had big dogs which ran the property line barking at other dogs and the rocks wouldn’t turn into mud.

One of my neighbors said they made the arc into the yard because grass will not grow under pine trees. Later we would find out that indeed grass does grow. Trick is to cut the bottom limbs off.

Not My First Rodeo

I’ve sold 100+ items ranging from $3 to cars. But this was going to take some creativity.

My bright idea was to dig up all the rocks and sell them on Craigslist at $1 per orange Home Depot bucket. I’d even help shovel. What a deal!

This was a huge discount for whoever wanted to buy them. My guess is there was over $1000 in rocks out there.

Problem for me is the rocks were placed on landscaping fabric which was old and falling apart so I couldn’t use a shovel. I’d have to get on my knees, dig by hand, and separate the rocks from dirt.

I knew I couldn’t do the whole “free rocks but you have to dig them up” listing you see in the Free section.

Before I could list the rocks I’d have to have some merchandise ready to sell with a nice picture.

Amateur Miner

I had been watching the show Gold Rush for a few years at that time. And from watching the show I knew I’d have to either buy or make a rock sifter. Because that’s how you separate the dirt from the rocks before you wash them.

Headed up to Ace Hardware, bought some wood, casters, staples, and chicken wire. This is what I came up. I named it the “uuuuuuhhhhhhh Travertine”.** Tony Beets would be so proud (probably not).

Do Work

So much work. So many calories burned. So many rocks. And it did not help that it had rained.

But I kept at it for a couple of hours a day over the next week and started to make progress.

After many loads I created this enormous pile of sorted and washed rocks.

Sell Sell Sell

I posted that picture with the following listing.

Within an hour I had three people contact me with one saying he could be at my house in an hour.

Holy shit. This is working.

I had a few people show up over the next two days where each would take a bucket or two. Each said they needed some for fire pits or small rock gardens.

I’ll Take It All

And then I was contacted by a guy who lived in Trenton (if I remember correctly) wanted to know if I still had some left. I said about half the picture. He said he’d be at my house in an hour.

After showing up with an older Dodge Ram he looked at the pile and said he’d take it all. Turns out he was building a very large pond on his property and needed rocks for the bottom to cut down on weeds growing before he filled it in with water.

We spent a good thirty minutes filling up Home Depot buckets and dumping them into the bed of the truck. And man was that truck squatting. He’d have to take surface roads all the back. It came out to $75. Not bad.

He then asks if I have any more rocks. I had only done half of the backyard at this point. “Yes”. He wanted the rest of them. I told him I’d need at least two days to dig up and sort the rest. When I was done I’d call him.

After two days of digging, sorting, and washing more rocks I created an even larger pile.

Called him back up and told them they were ready. He was at my house that day. Instead of keeping track of how many buckets we filled we agreed on $125 for all of it.

I hope he made the 20 mile drive back ok. He had to ask a buddy to bring his Toyota Tacoma with an upgraded suspension for this load. And even that was almost squatted out.

Win Win

He got a huge discount on the rocks. Probably saved $800.

I got $200 back for 20 hours of digging, sorting, and washing rocks. None of which is important.

What is important is we were able to get rid of the rocks we did not want because of creatively using Craigslist.

I’m basically a legend in my neighborhood because of this. My neighbors on both sides saw me digging up the rocks and when I told them I was going to sell them on Craigslist they laughed.

When they asked about not seeing the rocks on my patio two weeks later and me telling them I sold them on Craigslist they both laughed again. One neighbor tells people I’m the man “who gets people to dig up and buy his rocks”.

Now about that mulch.

*For some reason I remember an episode of Flip Or Flop where Christina El Moussa told her then husband Tarek he was an idiot for either putting a travertine floor in or saying he should put it in. Doesn’t matter. She said “uh travertine” and by the end of the show I was like “uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Travertine”.