How long must you wait for someone who purchased an item but never picked it up at a yard sale?
Back during the first week of September, a reader we’re calling Alice participated in her neighborhood’s annual neighborhood yard sale. Dozens of houses participate every year and Alice has long enjoyed clearing out her attic, basement and closets of things she no longer needs or wants but that might provide some use to someone else.
Alice lives in a neighborhood in a large New England city that is easy to get to by subway and has plenty of on-street parking, so the yard sale is frequented by people from all over who attend to see if they can find something specific they might be looking for or to be surprised by something they never knew they needed until they saw it for sale.
Every year, Alice finds enough stuff to place out on a folding table in front of her house. She makes about $100, a bit more if the weather is particularly nice, and even more if she has some old pieces of furniture to sell.
The weather this year was perfect, according to Alice. A warmish fall day in New England with no rain in sight. The posted yard sale hours were from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The steady stream of potential customers began right at the start and continued throughout the day. Because Alice was at the start of her block, every once in a while someone who bought something would ask if they could pick it up later in the day, especially if it was on the larger size and if they were already carrying quite a few items from others’ sales.
At about 11 a.m., Alice sold a set of dishes and a few pieces of glassware to a customer. After he paid, she offered to put the items in a box and he asked if he could pick up the box at the end of the day. She agreed and then he placed a sleeve of plastic drinking cups he had purchased elsewhere into the box and left them on Alice’s front steps.
By the end of the day, the customer hadn’t returned. Nevertheless, Alice left the box on the steps overnight in case he returned the next morning. No appearance. Three days passed and the customer never arrived for the pickup. Finally, on the fourth day, rain was predicted so Alice moved the box to her basement and figured the customer would ring the bell if he ever showed up.
It's been more than two months now and there has been no sign of the customer. Alice wants to know if she’s obligated to hold onto the goods.
I am not an expert in yard sale law, but it seems that if Alice were moving or truly didn’t have space to store the items, she would be OK getting rid of them. But given that the box is not taking up much space in her basement and it contains an item that the customer bought elsewhere, the right thing seems to be to hold onto the item to see if the customer shows up, even if it’s at next year’s sale. If it becomes a burden to do so, then Alice should be clear finding a new home for the goods.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.
Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.
(c) 2024 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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