The Hainline Auction...

Well, the Flora Hainline auction was held yesterday at 1pm. It was an all weekend event that left us (Pam and her sister Roberta, and attachments, er husbands, Vic and I) in a sun burnt lump of frazzled jelly.

About two weeks ago, the auction company stopped by and talked to the girls about how it was all to happen. Basically, they had to have everything to be sold in some sort of little flat boxes that would show off the items to be sold and could be used and slid around by the auction staff easily. So, they went down to the local beer distribution place and were given 3-400 beer 'flats' or the little boxes that they put a case of beer in for stacking purposes. They then spend an entire weekend separating and loading all the remaining contents of the house into these flats for sale at auction and loaded them all into two rooms of the house.

Then on this Friday, the auction company dropped off a trailer full of some 20 or 30 long tables and tarps and an outhouse for Sunday's auction. We had to sit up all the tables in the back and front yards, but mostly in the back yard. Since there are a bunch of fruit trees all over the back yard, I had to do a lot of trimming so the low hanging branches didn't hurt people or impede the placement of the tables too much. We had 5 rows of tables that extended all around the yard and were stuffed with all the boxes of stuff that Pam and Roberta had loaded. We also had to clean out all the stuff in the garage and all the miscellaneous stuff and appliances in the house and wherever it was stored. Below you will see a picture of part of the setup backyard with early auction 'reviewers' checking stuff out and Pam and Roberta congratulating themselves on a job well done...

Then, in the front yard, all the furniture had to be torn down from inside the house, moved to the front yard and reset up in room groupings as they would actually look when in use. Its amazing how much that old hard wood furniture weighs... Anyway, this is a very small view of all of the setup and results of all the work that went on all weekend...




And then there was the motor home... There is no way to possibly say enough about the motor home... It has been sitting for about 7 years and was a complete disaster mechanically. I checked the oil and it was about 4 quarts overfull. Actually, we later found out it wasn't really overfull of oil, it was actually gasoline in the oil. When you would start it, the would put out a solid white heavy smoke and spew out oil that covered all the leaves and ground cover and the neighbor's trailer and house with oil splattering, There were bird/rodent nests in the air cleaner and all the belts squeaked horribly - the list just keeps going on and on... Anyway, after replacing the oil, adding a number of additives and carb cleaners and using starting fluids, we were finally able to get it running well enough to pass the auction test - which was start it up, move it forward and move it backward... It died a couple if times in the process, but it finally did do that test and only took up all about 20 hours worth of work to get that done...

She had about 7 TVs and an equal number of VCRs and piles of everything...




The auction lasted for about 5 hours. It is quite amazing to watch and hear. As they would move down a table, there would be 4-5 of the staff going along. The auctioneer, a couple of guys that would yell out features and handle the stuff, and a couple of spotters and recorders to keep track of the bids and sales. If something would not sell, they would add another box of stuff to it all until at some point, the whole pile included something someone wanted and they would end up getting it all. We were all amazed at the prices that were paid - both way too low and quite high in many cases.

But, the good news is that it is all gone and the best news is that it is all OVER... There is nothing left now be an empty house of which there seems to be a lot of interested buyers. So, hopefully, that will be sold soon and all of this will be done. The auction ended up grossing $ 4,650. The motor home sold for $ 1,100... The auctioneers get 15% and they take the ads and toilet rental out of the proceeds. So the bottom line will be about $ 3,800 - I am guessing. It is too bad the other siblings, that will have equal share of the proceeds, couldn't have been there to 'enjoy' all of the work and hassle of the weeks it has taken to get this all done... Really too bad...

But, the weather has turned hot and if I can do my yoga, I am going down fishing and hopefully catch my first large sturgeon of the year - an try to get the past couple of days, and the incessant drone of that auctioneer's voice out of my mind...