Be gone thou cursed used furniture!

May 3, 2006 10:48 AM

Used Furniture filter: I'm in a small college town and I need to get rid (very much want to sell) most of the furniture in my apartment. Beyond putting flyers up on the college campus, are there any other ways for me to get rid of my furnishings?

The town in question is Fayetteville, Arkansas, and I've scoured the phone book for answers, only to come up with none. I have to have it sold and gone by April 14th, so I turn to the collective wisdom of the MeFi, how can I accomplish this? Thanks in advance for your help!

posted by Atreides to Home & Garden (17 answers total)

Craigslist? Classifieds in your local daily and alt-weekly? Aside from Craigslist, that's how things have been sold for decades...
posted by klangklangston at 10:53 AM on May 3, 2006

Sorry to say this, but an April 14th deadline is impossible without a time machine. Unless you mean May 14.

Try flyering the student union, advertising in all the usual papers. Apparently there's no Craigslist serving your area.

If that doesn't work and you wind up with no other options, donating to Goodwill/Salvation Army/whatever is no doubt preferable to dealing with them. Salvation Army will also pick up.
posted by adamrice at 10:58 AM on May 3, 2006

Craig's List has got to be the most efficient way to do that kind of thing I've ever seen.
posted by Nicholas West at 11:01 AM on May 3, 2006

For that which you can't sell: Freecycle!
posted by mendel at 11:04 AM on May 3, 2006

Response by poster: Bah, yes, May 14th. I broke my time machine five days from now trying to get something done today, so its useless to me now. I thought about craig's list, but its basically for the Little Rock area, which is about two and a half miles away. Personally, I would drive that far for used furniture.

Newspaper ads...I've probably sixteen to eighteen items looking to get rid of, so probably won't work. If anyone has a suggestion on how to go about it, I'd be more than happy to hear it.

I apologize, I should mentioned exactly how much I'm dealing with here. However, thank you for the quick answers. I may just end up killing a tree to paper the campus, after all. Thanks for the tip on Salvation Army, I've been donating all sorts of things there lately, hadn't crossed my mind to include furniture.
posted by Atreides at 11:13 AM on May 3, 2006

Some (Many? All?) colleges and universities have for-sale and housing email lists or newsgroups. I don't know about yours.
posted by JMOZ at 11:15 AM on May 3, 2006

Send out an email to 10 or 20 of your local friends listing the items for sale and your contact information; ask them nicely to pass it along to their friends, co-workers or church groups.
posted by junkbox at 11:34 AM on May 3, 2006

In a college town, I'd be surprised if you could sell the stuff. I'm in a big college town, and people just put used furniture on the curb for people who are moving in. No one buys it, because everyone charges too much. You may be able to get 5-10 bucks a piece, tops.
posted by Loto at 11:37 AM on May 3, 2006

The easiest thing to do would be to contact your landlord so you can ask the tenants coming into your unit if they need furniture. If they are students it's quite likely they will need something.
posted by gatorae at 11:43 AM on May 3, 2006

I'll be in the same situation, but I'm leaving at the end of August. Right now I'm asking friends if they want anything, most of which I'll let go for free or for a bit of cash for some items (in addition to a couch and such, I have some stereo equipment that is too cumbersome to move cross country with me).

Once my friends have had their cracks at it, I'll post flyers for the stuff I want to sell, and check out my university's online buy and sell page.

The rest of it, I'll give away. I don't know about Fayetteville, but around here, Big Brothers and Big Sisters is always looking for stuff which they then sell at Value Village.

I should point out that most of this stuff is hand-me-down and I can't expect to get enough money for it to make it worth my time to actively sell. Your situation may be different.

Good luck, though. It can be a daunting task. I'm trying to get a big head start on it as I am working at least 40 hours a week for the rest of the summer, right up until the day I can leave town. The only other advice I can give you is to be draconian about what you get rid of and what you keep. I'm sure you know this, but if you are anything like me, you've held on to a lot of crap that really has no purpose whatsoever (I had, until about fifteen minutes ago, a box full of old, used, guitar strings and cables that go with whoknowswhat that I hadn't even looked at for three years).
posted by synecdoche at 11:49 AM on May 3, 2006

Truck, friend, Salvation Army.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 12:06 PM on May 3, 2006

Response by poster: After navigating the labrynth that is my school's website, I did find an online place for selling/buying furniture. Doesn't seem like it gets much traffic, but it won't hurt!

Thanks for the tip on that.

I've tried the landlord trick, and despite the fact they're eager to kick me out of my apartment, they've yet to find a taker for it. I've given a list to the Super, who in turn has circulated it some, but again, to no avail.

Thanks again for all the advice so far.
posted by Atreides at 12:10 PM on May 3, 2006

I second the vote for Freecycle - people started showing up on my doorstep 5 minutes after I made a freecycle listing.
posted by bhance at 12:51 PM on May 3, 2006

Weird as this might sound, if you get really desperate why not call up Tim and Jeff in the morning and see if they don't have a sense of humor about the whole thing and want to talk about this crazy college kid who needs to get rid of his stuff *pronto*? They're both really cool guys and you never know. If they can keep calling WaffleHouses to ask for Woo Pigsooey, maybe they can make it their personal mission to unload your crap. It's worth a try, i have to say. And never underestimate the power of radio.

All in all, i will still say Freecycle is the way forward, but if you feel like a crazy adventure, ring up the radio. I mean, who knows, right?
posted by indiebass at 3:00 PM on May 3, 2006

What sort of an apartment are you in? I had an apartment sale when I lived on the secodn floor of a two flat -- balloons and such at the street level and left the door open. Put all the stuff in the living room and a sofa in front of the way to the rest of the place. Garage sale without the garage. I can see this not being feasible in a dorm-like situation or other apartment configurations, but I thought I'd mention it.
posted by macadamiaranch at 3:46 PM on May 3, 2006

Craigslist. Ditto.
posted by radioamy at 6:18 PM on May 3, 2006

Response by poster: Indiebass, I think you get the top score for most creative suggestion.

I'll consider Freecycle the closer I get to my deadline, as I'd prefer to sell, just so I can apply that cash towards replacement furniture. So thanks for that suggestion.

I'd happily go with an apartment sale, but I think the apartment owners probably wouldn't like the idea. They might even have something in the lease about it, I'd have to check.

Thank you again, everyone, for your suggestions!
posted by Atreides at 7:39 AM on May 4, 2006