More hazards, dangers, cautions to bore you with...

Thanks for waiting so patiently for a new post folks. Have had some family health issues pop up over the past couple weeks....seems like that is how it happens...suddenly. Those events sort of threw a wrench into blogging, picking, eBaying, etc.

But, things have levelled out, and I am getting back on track. Had planned to blog tonight anyway, but the fact it is raining now drove me inside earlier than expected. August is pretty much done, September is here, and fall is rushing in.

I happen to really like picking in the fall, myself.

Yes, the weather tends to be cooler than summer, but not too cold to work, most of the time anyway.

But, it holds another "plus" when it comes to picking. This "plus" only really applies to places that actually have a true "fall"...that is, the leaves on the trees fall off, foliage drops, etc....

Get what I am driving at?

You can go through the countryside (or even in the cities, towns, etc, for that matter) in the summer, and miss so many good "picks" simply because you can't see them.

I know of many potential picking spots that are visible in the fall...but, come summer, they disappear from view entirely. Many of them you could drive by, or even walk by, within a mere couple yards, and not see them. I am not talking tiny sheds here, either...I'm talking about 2 story houses, entire huge barns, gas stations, etc!

Another thing to watch for in the summer is look in your mirror as you pass stands of trees, or go slower around curves, while on back roads....That curve could well be there because of an old farm property is hidden in the bush. This is a view of one that was all but hidden from view before I rounded the curve and stopped when I saw the place in my passenger side mirror.



Had I been going my usual 90KM PH (Kilometers per hour, with 90K being equivalent to about 56MPH, for those US readers out there), the "rooster tail" (gravel dust cloud left behind from my van) would have obscured this place from view in my mirror.

Now I will need to find out who owns it. Yes, that is right, I do NOT take stuff out of these sorts of places without permission. I'd rather buy the stuff, AND have someone know I am there. Yes, they look abandoned, and many may well be, but the fact of the matter is that they are still private property, and there IS an owner somewhere who may care about the property and its contents. If you like getting shot at, the cops pulling you over, and/or being labeled a thief, creating your very own criminal record, I guess that is your prerogative...keep ripping stuff off.

As a picker who is "above board" and pretty darn "straight", it understandably pisses me off when I am working on finding an owner of a property I am interested in picking, trying to get in legitimately and someone meanwhile steals the stuff from inside. I don't have any respect for those sorts of people. I have run across individuals who think nothing of backing up to old building, raiding a place, making a huge mess, and loading up their trucks, with nary a concern to having any sort of permission to do so.

They are not people I (nor others) consider pickers. They are thieves, pure and simple. One fellow I know of will even steal wrought iron gates right off of the front entrances of inhabited houses in broad daylight....in the city! I refuse to buy anything from him....odds are the item is hotter than hell. When these people call themselves "pickers", it makes my blood boil. "Crook" is the proper term for them.

Theft is theft. It doesn't matter if the item seems to be "neglected" and "abandoned". It still has an owner. So, if you did not buy it from the owner, or the owner did not give you permission to take it, it is not yours, period. Yes, in the big picture some minor things may not matter......but, perhaps I can clue you in to something else you need to know....

These "abandoned" properties sometimes are not really abandoned.

I have seen places in the middle of nowhere that I have driven by in the summer, that appeared to be empty and abandoned, but when driving by in the winter, with nary a tire mark or path to the place, there will be a column of smoke rising from the chimney.

And, odds are there is a rifle or shotgun close at hand in the house.

So, had you gone up to the place, and shoved open the door of such a dwelling, you might have gotten quite a surprise...if you lived long enough to actually be surprised.

If you knocked on the door, that may have been a different matter. Maybe you could have bought some cool stuff, instead of laying on that silk pillow in that narrow, shiny box, 6 feet under.

Ok, yes, I am being extreme, but, the possibility is there for grave danger on properties that are overgrown, structures that are deteriorating, etc. That bowed roof of that barn you are climbing in might just require one more little gust of wind to cause the entire barn to collapse on top of you. You really need to be vigilant, even when you HAVE permission to climb around such places. When a structure has been neglected for years, its structural integrity may well be compromised.

Be aware of what rotting lumber looks and smells like. Take note of large cracks and gaps in timbers, notice that pillar laying on the floor, or that the bottom of it is rotted off and realize that it is essentially hanging in mid air, so the floor that it is supporting is not actually being supported. Don't walk on top of that pile of rotting hay, as the floorboards underneath are as sturdy as a wet sponge.

I could go on and on about structures and the hazards, but I am sure you will tire of my lecturing...So, I will lecture you about the OUTSIDE hazards before you even GET to the structure!

Old wells are the scariest and usually the most well hidden hazard on old farm sites and such. There was at least one on every farm site. Sometimes there were a couple. Just because you are walking amongst grass does not mean that there aren't boards beneath your feet....rotten boards, covering up the 4' wide opening of a 20 foot deep well.

Gravity is not your friend when you are standing in such a spot.

If you live in an area with vegetation, drop a chunk of board on the ground, and let it sit there for 2 summers in the grass...of course, don't mow over top of it, just let the grass grow. After 2 summers, possibly even one summer, depending on moisture, the board will be invisible to the eye. It will be covered by grass, dirt, etc, and you will only be able to feel it under the grass.

Now, consider boards that have been essentially lying on the ground for 60 years.

Get the picture?

Old root cellars are another potential issue. Yeah, the house may be gone, the barn is still there, but the root cellar that had been at the side of the house, or some ways from the house was never filled in. Same goes for old cisterns (water reservoirs), buried steel storage tanks (they do rust out), basements, old tunnels, and a multitude of other underground cavities. If you live in an area where mining was common, you will need to watch for old mining tunnels, ventilation shafts, etc.

So, if no one knows you are on an old property, and you fall down a well..., well....(yes, pun intended)....good luck, buddy!

Sometimes there are more interesting old underground places, of course. But, when you find these sorts of places, be careful as well.

A neighbor of my parents told us about a time when he was plowing one of his fields. He had cleared some bush some years previous, and had planted and harvested a crop in that spot each year. Then, this one time when he was plowing, he heard a loud WHOOOOOMP-SHHH sound, and looked back to see a large cloud of dust rising behind his plow, from a spot he had gone over seconds before.

When the dust settled, there was a large crater visible, large and deep enough to have swallowed his tractor & plow. And, in the hole, he saw what had been an old whisky still, jugs, crates, etc.

Unfortunately, (from my picker's/local history buff's point of view), he just filled the hole up, contents and all.

You know, I did not intend on writing about dangers, hazards and such today...what I had planned was to talk about a recent pick of mine, show you some of the cool stuff I found, etc......hmmm...well, I guess you will have more reading, as I will be doing two blogs today!

A Different Perspective.

A few days ago, I went through a building that I had been through thoroughly 3 times before over the past 20 years...

And STILL found a treasure!

You never know what else you will find in a place you have already been through, as long as you keep looking at it with fresh eyes, fresh knowledge, and more experience.

The first time I had been through the place was when it was owned by a classmate's father.

From them I heard about what had been there..something pickers are familiar with & hear a fair bit....all the stuff that was tossed out, destroyed, cut-up, burned, etc, etc....

In this particular case, they had purchased what was an old hardware store, which had a double store front and is two stories tall. The upper floor was storage for inventory, fixtures, etc....and it was HUGE for a small town hardware store.

I had also heard the previous owner had held an auction , in the 1970s, and that was when the gravity gas pump and such items were sold. The previous owner also tended to not throw anything away, from my understanding, and judging from the "
remnants" I saw, neither did the owner(s) previous to him....all the way back to the early 1900s.

In any case, when my high school classmate's family acquired the building & hardware business, they inherited all the old stuff that was left behind. The two pics below show the spaces the stuff had occupied....just to give you an idea of the quantity of stuff potentially involved. Yes, those are large, 1970s kid's wading pools in the second photo. Consider their size, and compare them to the size of the space. This place is not tiny.

So, what they did was clean out the place...now, study the photo below, just to get a better idea of the quantity of old stuff they tossed out.....literally....right out the windows.

Now, judge the distance from the bottoms of the 3 windows you see in the first photo. They had a pile of stuff that reached from the bottoms of the windows to the ground....now, with a hill of stuff, you can imagine the quantity that was tossed out. Measurement wise, for sake of argument, lets say it was a pile about 20 feet high x 25 wide x 15 feet out, in a 90 degree triangle-wedge shape.

Sadly, despite living in the town as a teen at the time, I somehow missed that event...

Anyway, I had gone back to visit family, and decided to see what they still had kicking around.

I was allowed to check out the upstairs, where I made what really amounted to a fairly small pile; maybe half a pickup truck box load.

I made an offer, and my former classmate's father declined, saying something to the effect to come back when I "knew more."

A little insulting, don't you think? Even at that point, only 3 or 4 years into buying and selling antiques for a living (but being into old stuff since I was 7) I already knew far more than this fellow, who really had zero background in antiques & collectibles. You meet all sorts of people, and this kind of attitude pops up more often than picker's would like. You work around it, and if you really don't care if you buy the items or not, it is no loss. You try to not let it bother you, and the longer you are in the business, the less those sorts of things bother you. In this case, I was still somewhat "green" and was a bit ticked-off at his rejection of what I thought was a darn fair offer.

The stuff stayed upstairs.

About 4 years later, I went back to the store again, as I had heard my classmate had taken over the business.

Went upstairs again, and there was my pile, just as I had left it those years before.

I looked at the stuff again, through eyes that had a few years of experience behind them, and made an offer......

HALF of what I had offered his father the first time.

Now, I hadn't offered half out of spite. What I saw in that pile simply was not worth what I had originally thought it was those 4 years previous.

Yes, I had learned more.

He should have taken my original offer....'cause his son gladly (& smartly) took my offer.

I also got to go through areas that I was not allowed in the first time. I bought a few other things, and loaded my truck, full.

So, several years later, I hear the hardware business had been sold, and was being moved. A liquidation/moving auction was going to be held.

The current owner was dumping lots of dead inventory, displays, etc into the sale, and I was also operating a salvage & surplus business as well as the antiques business, so it was worth the trip to get inventory for both, plus I got the visit family.

I went to the auction, bought a van load of various stuff, and was able to go through most of the nooks and crannies, as well as hauled some unsold old lumber (including old moldings and such for repairing furniture and the like) and such out of the basement. This extra bit of salvage of the lumber also gave me some extra legitimate time in the building to look around, as things were taken out, cleared out, and "hidden" areas revealed.

It is amazing the things that can be revealed when things that have been in one spot for many years are moved out of a storage area. Things fall behind other things, get lost, forgotten, or even purposely hidden....I have found more old porn magazine stashes than I can count, especially in old drug store basements!

Plus, when you can see the walls, get closer to the hard to reach nooks and crannies, you will notice things that you hadn't seen before. Light shines into what had been a dark corner for the last 50 years. You can reach things that you had just decided weren't worth the trouble, and those items may turn out to be treasure in the end.

I got a few goodies, nothing fantastic. The pressed tin ceiling in the building was also available for sale from the new owner, but he wanted an astronomical price for it, essentially one that was full bore retail...and it all STILL had to all carefully be taken down off of the ceiling. That is not a fun, nor clean, task. Years of dust & dirt accumulate under those tiles, especially when there is another floor above them. When you pull one down you may well end up with a garden's worth of dirt in your face.

And this guy wasn't budging on his price...he was firmly affixed on his fantasy price.

So, I left, van full of assorted junk.

Yes, I had a van by this point. The truck was written off in an accident...a heck of a picking story on its own.

So, many more years pass.....can you hear the time ticking by?

Tick, tock.... tick, tock....tick, tock....

Ok, that's enough....I don't want to be up all night.

So, now I end up living back near my home town. Odd, seeing as when I was 18 and moved to Winnipeg, I swore I'd never go back to live there. I guess I am not living there, anyway...just near-by...

So, I find out the building was let go for taxes, and sold, for $3000.....then later re-sold for $8000....

Then the buyer of it sold it for $12,000.

Then the fellow who bought it for $12,000 stripped out the tin ceiling.....yes, the original guy who was asking the astronomical price for the tin LEFT the tin!

The fellow who stripped out the tin then sold the building once again, for a profit on his original purchase price.

My wife & I have since become friends with the current owner.

She and other business partner have renovated once half of the building, and turned it into a women's upscale clothing boutique...and also has a small section of the front of the other side set up as a shabby chic/antiques "flea market" store. Now you can see why we became friends....that love of old stuff.

So, anyways, I have been given pretty much free reign to wander through the place...well, not the change rooms, obviously!

I look at things with fresh eyes, and more knowledge.

And that tin ceiling? It was removed, remember?

When I wandered into the back half of the other section I saw something interesting....something that was PART of the ceiling....hidden for many years by the tin tiles...

Check it out:

Yep, an early wooden store sign, made of planks.

Here is a closeup of the paint:

This "little" beauty dates from about 1885...and is about 7 feet long. It is from the front of a butcher, possibly from the storefront it was in. Will have to do more research to know that for sure. It is also worth more than ANYTHING I had bought from the building the first few times. I'm selling it for our friend, of course.

So, depending on the situation, changes, renovations, demolition, clean-outs, changes of owners, etc, etc, etc; rechecking somewhere you have already been through can be worth your while.

There are little things that change, also.
What does this photo of a floor say to you?



Yeah, the composition of the photo sucks, it is boring, ugly, the floor is dirty...I know, forget all that...what does the image say to you as a picker?

Well?

To me it says "HEY, ACCESS TO UNDER THE FLOOR!"
Why would I bother looking under the floor?
The building dates from the late 1800s. Despite being built so early, the drinking habits of construction workers have not changed in well over a couple hundred years.
Yes, the bottles, cans, etc of their beverages get left behind...as do a multitude of other items..both purposely and accidentally...so you may find cigarette packs, gum packs, tools, hats, shirts, hardware, register grates, books, etc.
Plus, coins, jewellery, and other small items get dropped between the cracks, through register grates, through cracks and holes in the walls, etc.
Getting the picture? Might want to pick up one of those little rectangular inspection mirrors, and attach a tiny, but bright, LED flashlight to it and add it to your equipment.
One story I heard years ago, was of a major find of cone top beer cans. Many (or all) were of what was a very rare can, and a valuable one. The building was being demolished, and when the workers took the wall down, a flood of cans came pouring out!
If you love old junk, and have been involved in this area in some shape or form, I am sure you have heard stories of cash, jewellery, guns, and all sorts of stuff being found in the walls, floors & ceilings of old buildings.
So, what does that loose floorboard say to you now?
Attics are the same thing. Not high enough, or enough space to store anything when you open the trap door?
WAIT....look around...
In one old 4 story warehouse building, an attic trap door of the 4th story that I poked my head into barely had a foot of space between the ceiling and the roof...and it was in a ceiling that was 15 feet up.
But, I found 2, mint condition, late 1800s/early 1900s Copenhagen chewing tobacco cans that the guys who installed the pressed tin ceiling had left behind. Was worth the climb up the ladder.
Oh, and while you are up there, or down there on the floor, as the case may be, take a look around....you may be surprised what you will notice when you are looking at the place from a different perspective. From up on a ladder you can see the tops of shelves, maybe even behind shelves, false walls, etc.

Also, consider that when buildings are about to be renovated, things like the old doors, hardware, light fixtures, etc may well be earmarked for replacement, thus, they may well be available to purchase, if not right away, in the near future.
If the grain painted door pictured below was being replaced, or walled over, it, the hardware and the moldings around it might be available for purchase.




This photo brings me to another point....


Here is a better angle:


A door that leads to nowhere..or possibly to a broken leg or two...

Yes, it opens onto the open stairwell....wide open space.

So, the stairwell has been moved...which means the floor plan has been changed somewhat, and there could potentially be a "lost" space somewhere. In this particular location, that is not the case, but, I have found semi-accessible closed off "dead" spaces...in which I found old "junk", which had been lost, accumulated, or forgotten.

Well, should let that all sink in...and sign off for now.

More Cautionary Tales...

If you know you are invincible, you can skip this bit of friendly advice.

I was first going to work on a blog of my recent trip to Winnipeg.

However, over the past couple days, while browsing pics in a few folks Facebook photo albums of places they have been into, I took notice of a few. They made that exclamation point jump out of the top of my head like in cartoons...

Aren't I talented?

Anyway, the various pics showed some rooms, or rather, areas/corners/ceilings of rooms. The one thing they had in common was they had black stuff in spots on various parts of the walls/ceilings/stuff.

And what was this black stuff?

It is highly likely it was black mold.

No, not Beverly Hillbilly Jed's black gold...but, black MOLD.

Good old Stachybotrys.

You can click on the word there, for a definition if you like, But, Y'all come back now, ya hear?

You back?

Good...

So, anyway, as you have possibly read (or already know), it can be nasty stuff. Looks innocent enough, but a bomb can look innocent until it goes off.

I had my own nasty encounter with it, and man, it really messes with your head & body. Created things like depression, physical weakness, breathing issues and more. Went from being quite fit to getting winded going up a single flight of stairs. I wasn't able to lift things I had no trouble lifting a few months earlier. I find I am now really sensitive to it, and can tell there is some in any building I go into, just by my body's reactions.

I won't bother going into further details, as there is enough info online as to what it can do to you. Your imagination can take it from there.

So, get familiar with it, and if you are involved in a situation where it is growing, especially in abundance, wear a respirator type mask that can filter out the spores.

NO, one of those cheap WalMart dust masks won't cut it.

Plus, when you bring items into your home, storage, etc, that is from a building where that mold is, you are bringing spores into your own space.

I don't want to create paranoia, as it is going to happen in this business, it is just a fact. But, you can take steps to prevent excess exposure. Sealing items in a bag prior to putting them in your vehicle, washing them well, DRYING them well, etc before your bring them into your shop, house, storage, etc will all help.

There is all sorts of info on what kills mold and what doesn't. The information I found is that bleach actually isn't strong enough to eradicate it. The company who cleaned the mold from the building I was renting, which was the source of my problems at the time, used a product called Benefect. It was actually safer to humans than bleach (you could drink it without ill effects), but deadly to mold.

They also filled the place with ozone, which kills everything.

I have no idea what long term effects the exposure will have on my health. I guess we'll see. I know it has affected my lungs, and has increased my sensitivity to dust and other things.

SO, if you are out picking or just exploring old buildings, take my advice, and wear a decent mask into those damp basements, buildings, etc. Will be cheaper to buy a decent mask than pay for the long term effects the stuff could have on your health.

Another thing that concerns me as of late, with the interest in picking brought out by the popularity of the TV program American Pickers (History Channel), is the issue of private property.

Just because a building is alone, unattended, looks abandoned, etc, etc, DOES NOT mean it is not valued, ripe for raiding, etc.

I go to great lengths to find out who owns the buildings that I am interested in digging through.

There is actually a couple reasons for this, and one that you are likely unaware of, or have not thought of.

One is that I can legitimately be there, without any concern about looking up into a rifle barrel as rise up from picking something up, or perhaps a shotgun blast of buckshot or rock salt peppering my body, or being pulled over by the police later and charged with theft.

I will buy the items I want, (or occasionally I will be told to take what I want, but I always try to pay them something if there is anything good) and thus have no worries.

Another reason to get permission is that they will know you are there....to rescue you from the cellar when the stairs collapse, you get stuck in the hole you stepped through in the floor of the attic, etc.

Or, at least, they will know where to generally look for your body.

Scary, yes, but factual. It CAN happen. Even seasoned pickers sometimes get into what could be dangerous situations, and ones that, while they make good stories (like the one you will read below) they could have had very different endings.

And that story?

I checked out a barn, with old field stone foundation, and stalls that were made of more field stone and concrete, and an old concrete floor.

Was magnificent in its day, for sure. Likely the creation of a wealthy farmer, circa 1890.

It had a huge lower portion, and a split level loft.

The half with the upper portion of the loft had not been used for a much longer time than the rest of the barn, and thus, the roof over this portion had been neglected longer. There was light streaming through the boards on the roof, shingles long gone. The walls also had sunlight streaming through them, their once tight joints opened by years of wind & dust, then dampness & rot.

I viewed this picturesque sight through a door about 3' off the floor of the lower section of the split level loft.

It was pretty much empty, save for a few scattered planks..and a lone crock, about 20 feet away from where I stood.

It was a 2, maybe a 3 gallon; that I could tell by its size. A whitish glaze, so, in this area of the country, it was quite likely a Red Wing.

But, I could not tell if it was a birch leaf, had a printing variation, was an advertising crock or was just blank.

I'd have to turn it around to check for those things. There was no chance of climbing up the other side of the walls and peer through the boards, it was just way too high up.

The reason I was not about to just hop into the loft and walk across the floor was the fact that there was not a chance in Hades that the floor would hold me.

I suspected they were barely holding the weight of the crock. The once tight floor boards now had about a 1/2" of space between them, like the walls, except more extreme.

I could clearly see the 2' thick field stone stalls, the tops of which were easily 12 or more feet below me.

Yes, this barn was HUGE.

The fact that I could not see the other side of the crock annoyed me, and I soon figured out that the beams were essentially solid, being that they were very thick, and only had a small amount of surface rot on the tops. There looked like there were a few planks within reach of the door, and a few further out, between the crock and myself, that I could create a bridge to crawl over.

So, I grabbed the first board within reach....and set it down, across the closest beams...and then quickly rejected the idea..it didn't seem very solid either. I grabbed a much wider and solid one, and put it down beside the reject.

The start of my bridge!

I lifted myself carefully through the door, and onto the first board.

I reached out, and grabbed another plank nearby.

Hmmm..the end of the line...no other planks within easy reach. No problem, I would just grab the first one, and put it in front of the other one.

I then repeated the process.

I then managed to grab another nearby board, then another, and another.

The crock was finally within reach! A TRIUMPH!

I reached over, keeping myself steady on the boards, being ever so careful, and grabbed the crock.

To my dismay, the bottom of the crock stayed right where it was. It had had water in it form the rain, frozen, then cracked it.

Crap.

It was an error crock, but Mother Nature had rendered it worthless with her powers.

Well, I had come all this way across the gap toothed floor...and a Red Wing crock would look good in my garden....and I wouldn't have to worry about the bottom popping out of it in the winter now, would I? And, I wouldn't have to actually water the plant I put in it, either...with the access it would have to the ground. Genius!

So, I carefully turned around, walking on my knees and hands, and carefully made my way back towards the door. I moved the boards in reverse order, using only two for most of the last half of my knee splintered journey.

Nearing the door, I, for some unknown reason, stood up.

No, I didn't go through the floor....

Well, not until I stepped forward towards the door, on the reject board.

CRASH...!

I suddenly had one leg dangling in the air above the rock and concrete stalls far below, and my crotch was resting on the floor, with one leg splayed out, angling the rest of my body awkwardly on the floor of the loft.

My thought was: "Now that was stupid."

I waited a minute for my heart to go back to my chest, from its position in my throat. I then carefully assessed the situation.

I was still holding the crock in one hand.

More importantly, I was basically straddling a beam.

WHEW.

That's a relief.....wasn't about to fall right through, as long as my earlier assessment of the beams was accurate, and it wasn't rotten, also.

I carefully set the crock down, reached back, and grabbed the piece of wood I had stepped off of into my near death (or at least a near foray into extreme injury), set down alongside me. I positioned it so that the one end was near the door, as I still had to have something to stand on to exit the loft.

I also made sure the plank was carefully angled across a couple beams, with the ends resting on beams. Got to make sure I wasn't making a see-saw of death.

Leaning on it, I gingerly pulled my leg up through the hole, and positioned myself on the plank.

I took a deep breath of relief, and shakily got out of the loft, trying to softly land on the floor of the lower loft, lest the floor gave way.

I then turned around, and grabbed the "prize" I had just risked my neck for.

I still have it, though it is now for sale....price: $5...makes a great planter!

Hmmm...come to think of it, it might be more valuable as a little reminder....

More Hoarders & Collectors

A number of years ago, I got a call to come and buy stuff from an estate a couple had inherited.

Seems to me the fellow had been their distant uncle, a friend of the family, or something...or maybe they had bought the place, I am not sure anymore.

Regardless, the estate had been in limbo for awhile, and it was a rural property.

The fellow had most certainly been a collector turned hoarder.

You see, there was mostly vintage items...sheds and sheds of them.

But, he had started to save things like the ashes from his wood stove, which he stacked around his house in a boxes. He also had jars of mercury from thermometers, mercury switches, thermostats, etc.

Now, normally this would be a wonderful find, sheds and sheds of vintage items....

But, there were 2 little snags....

Seeing as the estate was in limbo for so long, the property vacant and unguarded, the fellow's neighbors took/stole a fair bit from the buildings, which were anywhere from waist high with stuff, to 6 & 7 feet high stacked with stuff.

Normally, that doesn't really mean the place has nothing of value left, but, this place was pretty tough to find much of value. Some of the buildings were open to the weather some, and there was this one other little issue....

The fellow was a tad paranoid about his stuff getting stolen.

So, his solution was to take items apart, and put the parts in different buildings!

A lightning rod's copper tube in one building, the tip in another, the stand in another and the ball in another....

A radio's case in one building, the chassis in another, and the knobs in another....

You get the picture?

So, with items being stolen over the years, who knows if the parts you were missing from that lightning rod where even still there....and which of the many sheds would the parts be in?

I had brought a fellow dealer friend with me, but, he found little, as he isn't into really "digging." He has a real good eye for the weird & wonderful, and is quite knowledgeable in a number of areas. He scans the top of piles, looks in drawers, that sort of thing, but that is pretty much it. I, on the other hand am a real digger....

I burrow.

In my search for worthwhile items to buy, I happened to be digging in one particular shed....moving from front to back...taking an item out from in front of me, and putting it behind me....and repeating that process....

I heard him calling my name, wanting to find out how close I was to being done searching.

I peered over the pile, which was about 6 feet high....

He was standing in front of the shed.

I called out to him, to let him know I was there.

I watched, amused, as he looked around, dumbfounded & confused. It was not a look I had ever seen on his face before that.

It was actually darn entertaining....!

All he could see was a pile of stuff....took him a few minutes to figure out that the voice WAS actually coming from the pile...the back of the pile, against the wall.

He was, well, quite surprised....

Anyway, that is how I tend to pick those sorts of places....really dig. Just because the top has been picked over doesn't mean there is not treasure beneath that top layer or two, you know? I did dig up a few neat things at that place, but most of them were, of course, PARTS of things...

I used to do (set up at) antique shows "out west"...in Alberta & British Columbia. I tended to leave a week before most of the dealers I knew....you see, I have a little problem...it takes me forever to go somewhere like that...I like to stop and smell the roses...

Or, I guess more accurately, the dust of attics, and the damp of basements.

A little town on the map, or a sign pointing to a town NOT shown on the map intrigues me.

Side roads beckon, grain elevators in the distance call to me.

On one trip out to Alberta to do some antique shows, I hit a side road, just on a gut feeling...turned off #1 Highway, Canada's main highway, with thousands of cars passing this particular road, daily.

One thing you should know about Alberta is that it is an oil rich province. They have a pretty healthy economy, generally, as a result of the oil beneath their soil...and the provincial government owns it all. So, there are far fewer gravel roads in Alberta than in places like Saskatchewan, Manitoba, BC, and many US states. Most of the roads that they have are paved with asphalt.

So, I headed down this road for a ways...not really knowing where or why I was headed down it, I just figured I'd drive, and see where it took me. I had time to kill, and three quarters of a tank of gas.

I kept driving, and to my surprise, the road turned to gravel...which means it was a real back road by Alberta standards. It continued as gravel for a bit...and then it turned to pretty much dirt...and I could see an old farm site with stuff scattered about...and fresh tire tracks into the property, but not out.

Cool...unless the tracks didn't belong to the owner....Oh, wait, there was a tractor tooling around the yard.

So, I drove in, got the fellow's attention, and told him what kind of stuff I was after.

As it turned out, he was the 3rd owner of the property, and the 2nd owner of it that year.

The previous fellow who owned it, had bought it for the scrap that remained on the property. He had hauled off so much scrap metal that he had made quite a bit of money, and eventually tired of hauling metal, and sold it to the fellow I was talking to.

There was enough metal left on the property that he was going to easily double his money as well. It was an estate, and one that had been tied up in the courts with all sorts of legal issues for many years.

The owner had been an eccentric inventor, who was into all sorts of things, including wind-power, as he had some home made turbines at one point, and had an old city bus full of 12Volt batteries all wired together.

The house had all sorts of military surplus electronic equipment, of which I knew little about at the time, and I passed on it. I did buy a box full of interesting items, but nothing that sticks out in my mind. What does stick out, however, is one of the things that this fellow told me had apparently been in the property when the eccentric inventor had passed away.

Three, still in the crates, WW2, army surplus Harley Davidson motorcycles.

The inventor had been buying WW2 surplus items when they were plentiful, in the late 40s and 50s...which admittedly does go well with that sort of inventor personality.

Unfortunately, they had been stolen, one by one, over a few years. Who knows where they went.

Anyway, in this case, was this fellow a hoarder, or simply eccentric? He accumulated stuff, but much of it seemed to be for use in his inventions...his "raw material," or his "palette", if you think in artist's terms.

I got their too late, and really don't have enough details to determine if he was a true hoarder or not.

So, if we "hoard" items, like antiques or collectibles, are we really "hoarders"? In the broadest term, maybe. But, we all have an innate, built in urge to "save" things...stands to reason, if we are "animals, per say. I don't wish to get into a debate on religion with this, of course, but if we have evolved from a 'lower life form", it is possible there are left-over "hoarding" instincts in us all.

For animals, it is part of survival. Squirrels need to hoard food for winter, as do mice, and other animals.

Maybe collectors are simply satisfying this natural urge.

Perhaps this instinct is some how triggered to drop into extreme overdrive in hoarders who have saved things we deem as trash, waste, excrement, etc....

Something to think about, I suppose.

Hoarding has saved many items from being lost forever, preserving history, and entertains folks like me.

I got a call from a friend one day, who was working for an auction house. He had to clean out an estate, and his regular worker was unavailable. With nothing to do that day, I said I could give him a hand. It also gave me a chance to see the items that were going into the auction, first.

We ended up in the basement, and I spotted an old narrow door, so, of course I had to check it out. Turned out it was the "cold room", where preserves and such are usually kept, essentially store room.

On the shelves were boxes measuring roughly 8" x 6", and were as high as a book of matches is wide...and that is exactly what they were...boxes of book matches....and plastic bags of book matches...thousands of them.

That is a little strange in itself, I suppose. But hang on, it gets stranger.

Each and every matchbook was individually wrapped in aluminum foil!

It was a little obsession this particular lady had, I guess.

It was weird, but I thought that it was also great...as the foil would have preserved them extra well....if they were collectible ones, this would be a cool find!

Sadly, they were all generic ones, boring, and essentially worth only what any usable book of matches is worth.

Oh well. Gave me another weird story to relate, and made life a little more puzzling, but interesting. Made me think, wonder about the person who wrapped all those matchbooks, so painstakingly, so carefully. What triggered the obsession? Experiencing a house fire, perhaps? Or was it something out of left field, an obsession even the person themselves did not understand?

I have run across (and still run across), weird, wonderful and bizarre things, places, people, events, and situations. Perhaps these stories are more valuable than the items I have bought and sold along the way. It is those experiences that have molded me into who I am. They have made me think, contemplate, consider, be aware. These random occurrences have opened my eyes; caused me to deal with my own life differently, adjust my own habits, made me aware of "obsessions" of my own, seeing what the future could hold if things were to get out of control, or if I were to follow a certain path. I have learned much in this business. Not just about "stuff"...but about "life" and its many facets. It is something you can't really say about many jobs.

I guess it is a good thing.

I have had some experiences in this business that, at the time, were not pleasant, but they certainly were experiences....Yes, I will be blogging about most of them!

Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes, laugh at the follies, and get inspired by the finds.

Collectors, Accumulators & Hoarders, Oh My.

***WARNING*** Those readers with sensitive dispositions/stomachs may wish to skip this particular entry.

As a picker scouting for "stuff," you tend to get into places that other people just do not regularly see.

In some of these cases, the owners of the stuff could be hoarders, or collectors or a combination of both.

There is a very fine line between collecting & hoarding. The human need to "acquire" things can go haywire, and show itself as a psychiatric illness. If a collector acquires those sorts of illnesses, their collecting can become very obsessive, beyond a normal level...and "normal" for nearly any collector could already be seen as "abnormal" for the "Joe on the street" as it is.


Who else but a collector would dedicate a whole room in their house to one particular object or theme, be it lunchboxes, signs, tins, dolls, china plates, salt/pepper shakers, pickle castors, carnival glass, Smurfs, etc...and sometimes their whole house is consumed by collections of one kind of another.


Louie Anderson was (maybe still is, I am not sure) a big collector of Mission/Arts & Crafts era furniture, preferably Stickley. In one of his books, entitled "Goodbye Jumbo - Hello Cruel World" he analyzes his "need" for the items as trying to replace something missing in his life, similar to his habits of overeating/binging. He had amassed an impressive collection, but one that was grossly taking over his living space.

Collecting gone haywire, perhaps.

Hoarding?

I don't know, really, maybe more like trying to fill an empty hole, or pit, where something is "missing", or using it as a salve on the psyche, or to create a feeling of self-worth.

To me, and I am sure some (all?) psychiatrists out there will disagree, hoarding is something that relates more to an obsession with hoarding things that make little sense, except to that one person. Also, it conjures up visions of unhealthy situations, where insects, mice, rats, and assorted "germs" are the direct result of the hoarding.

Did I mention I am a picker, not a psychiatrist?

What does good old Wikipedia say about hoarding?

Ok, so according to Wikipedia, I am on the money..."Compulsive Hoarding" "is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary." and goes on to say similar things about "animal hoarding". I will leave animal hoarding for an animal activist blogger to discuss, seeing as it does not really relate to my field at all....I am not going around looking through piles of assorted animals for intrinsically valuable animals.

I have been in the homes of a few hoarders...and MANY homes of people who could well be on their way to becoming hoarders, as per the Wikipedia definition of adult hoarders, if they are not aware of their situations.

I got a call at my store one day, asking if I bought old wooden crates. Actually, they said they were told that I bought old wooden crates, by several dealers. Yes, between that find in the attic of that old general store, and my penchant for advertising items, the stacks of wooden soda crates I tended to pick up out of old drug store basements, the apple & other fruit crates I bought for the labels, and a few other cool wooden boxes, I guess I did buy lots of crates...and still do.

Anyway, she proceeded to tell me she had about 20 apple crates.

I wasn't overly keen on that, but I said I would come and take a look. You never know what the crates are, as people's descriptions can be way off from what they are describing....PLUS (TIP HERE!!!) it is a legitimate invitation, and invite to see inside the garage, attic, etc....and you never know what else is there that they may sell!

So, I made arrangements to go take a look.

What I walked into was a 1920s bungalow, with a narrow staircase to a small second floor set of 2 narrow rooms. The main floor had been cleaned out, and was pretty much bare. The second room of the second floor was lined with crates sitting stacked on their sides, on planks.

And they were all filled with books & magazines, every wall to a point where the ceiling slanted up, about 5' from the floor.

Turned out she wanted rid of the books, also, and we hammered out a price for everything.

We talked quite a bit, which seems to always happen with me...I guess I have a gift of gab. In our conversation, she revealed the whole back story of the owner of the house.

The owner of the house was a family friend, who her (the person I was talking with) family sort of kept an eye on. A former teacher, and a spinster, she (the owner of the house) had also inherited much of her brother's possessions, who had been an actor in Hollywood.

No, sorry, no one you would know.

She...I mean the person I was talking to...you know, for ease of understanding, let's call her "Joyce", ok?

SO, Joyce would call her once and awhile, and chat, see how she was doing. Never really visited her in person often, but kept tabs on her...(let's call the lady "Edna", ok?)

SO, over a few weeks, Joyce was away, and had told her son to keep tabs on Edna.

(ahhh...using names is SO much smoother, isn't it?)

So, the son (ok, he is "FRED!")....

Fred calls the house, and can not get a hold of Edna.

He calls again the next day, and the phone still goes unanswered.

Concerned, he goes over, and knocks, but gets no answer.

Knowing that Edna is a little "off", he contacts the police to be there when he goes in, to assure there are no mis-understandings.

The police arrive there, Fred unlocks the door, and they all try to enter the home....

And the stench makes them wretch.

Once they were in, they found Edna on the bed, no covers, unconscious, where she had likely been for possibly a couple days.

In the bedroom, Edna had been saving her cats' (note: more than ONE cat...but not a hoard) feces...yes, their crap, shit, whatever you want to call it, it was piled in a box by the bed.

But, that was not the worst part of the place, as the toilet had been stopped up long enough that the overflow of sewage had rotted out a significant section of the flooring.

Ah, that explained the new plywood floor in the hallway and part of the living room I had seen.

But, that still was not the worst part of the situation.

Perhaps it was that the basement had flooded, and had never been cleaned out, just more stuff added on top once the water receded?

Nope.

The oddities, such as two huge, orange garbage bags full of empty toilet paper rolls that were in the basement, or the fact she had no running hot water in the kitchen. Or that the old one car garage was full, to the rafters, front to back with just years and years of newspapers?

Nope.

Maybe the fact that there was only very narrow paths through the house, due to the piles of stuff everywhere?

Nope.

So, what was the worst part of the situation in the home?

AND, I do need to note, I do mean aside from the human issues, such as the obvious, severe mental illness Edna was suffering with. I want to make clear that I am not down-playing that, nor making light of it, as it is a serious, and very upsetting situation for families & friends of those suffering from such illnesses, and more importantly, absolutely horrible for those experiencing such emotional turmoil.

Specifically, for the intents and purposes as related to this blog, I mean the physical situation of the home...the "stuff".

Ok, now brace yourself....

Edna had "decorated" the walls with her own feces.

Yeah...I know....that's pretty bad.

Now, when this sort of severe mental illness comes to play, I tend to avoid getting involved in a business/buying situation with the individuals, for obvious reasons.

In this case, I arrived on the scene many months later, with the house cleared out, things already sanitized, etc. There was still an ever-so-faint odor about the place, despite fresh paint, refinished floors, etc.

In many ways I was happy I had arrived on the scene after the big clean-out had occurred...but, hearing that the person who cleaned it out had hauled ALL the stuff to the dump was a little heart wrenching.

To understand why I felt a pang of anguish, you should know that this story dates from the late 1990s, and Edna had pretty much blocked herself out of the walk-up 2nd floor in the very early 1980s, possibly even late 1970s, and she had been in the house since the 1950s, possibly earlier. Plus, the door to the attic had been closed tight since the early 80s. It seems to me it had also been her parent's home, but I can't recall for certain.

The rooms had been full (remember the garage?) not just with books and some magazines, but with vintage paper stuff galore.

From the few paper things I obtained that had somehow missed being tossed, it was obvious her brother had frequented the Hollywood thrift stores/used book stores, and collected that sort of memorabilia.

I found a few gems in the books I purchased, though between the purchase price and the work involved, I really only made a meagre profit, considering the work involved hauling apple crates of books out of the place in the dead of summer in stifling heat, down a stair case narrower than the length of each crate....which meant you had to hold the crates out in front of you the long way......and you know how heavy a box of books or magazines can be. Let's just say it was a real chore.

So, there had been an entire hoard of old Hollywood & Broadway paper items, all quite likely in near mint to mint condition, tossed out.

The attic crawl spaces in the eves on either side of the rooms had contained even older stuff, and it also had been tossed. Those crawl spaces were also bone dry...excellent for preserving paper stuff.

So, she had been on the trail to hoarding for some time, and got progressively worse.

Her brother, on the other hand, probably was a collector.

Was she collecting? Could you call her a "collector"?

No, not in the least.

Same goes with another situation I happened across.

Again, I came across it thankfully/sadly after the worst had been dealt with.

But, I will leave telling you about it for a little later...

I have seen many collections. One fellow liked to collect things he felt were weird and wonderful, and almost always vintage or antique, and also collected things he felt would have value in the future.

He didn't sell much of anything for many years, just collected.

He was one of his community's "characters". A bachelor, who frequented auctions regularly, picked up stuff at the dump, got things given to him, bought weird things, and eventually built 3 buildings totally about 3000 sqr feet to house his collection.

Well, I guess you could call it more of an "accumulation."

He also proudly called himself "The Accumulator", and had business cards printed up as such.

In the last 20 years of his life, he decided it was time to start selling some of his stuff.

He did ok, sold pretty much at a wholesale level, though achieved retail prices for some things. He did well selling items to the movies being filmed in Manitoba locations, to the props and set dec departments of various productions.

He had saved things like old advertising calendars...and had started back in the 50s, continued up into the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. He sold most of the older ones into the early 70s fairly easily. He also had old hand made items, folk art/outsider art, catalogs galore, antique Bibles, Victorian photo albums, tobacco tins, taxidermy, antique deer antler furniture, mustache cups, and almost anything you can imagine...and lots you can not imagine. There were cabinets of files draers, all full of various items, sorted by subject...pens, keychains, bottle openers, bottle caps....hundreds and hundreds of items in the "small" category. From tiny things like tokens & bottle caps, to a 1880s pump organ, he had it all.

Actually, as I write this, my keyboard and screen are sitting on a folk art desk that I purchased from him several years ago.

His saving was orderly, with things well sorted, stashed away in boxes & crates for safe keeping.

His walk-up attic was full of a couple thousand trucker caps, hundreds of collector spoon racks, shelves of catalogs & calendars....as well as several hundred (empty) Texas Mickeys, as he had a penchant for big bottles, which I was well aware of, as I had sold and traded him many vintage oversize liquor & perfume display bottles. I am sure he acquired the Texas Mickeys empty, and I never saw him take a drink....though, one has to wonder how much whiskey a staunch, pretty "dry", Mennonite community actually consumed, considering how many of these huge bottles he had...I am sure it numbered around 40 or more....

He was a character, for certain. He had what some might consider a slight speech impediment, which gave him a bit of a drawl. However, it was no worse than trying to understand someone with an accent from a different part of the country.

He was an old bachelor who, frankly, didn't bathe much, or keep a very clean kitchen or washroom....a washroom which I think I used once in the about 15 years I knew him...that first sight of a black toilet, that was originally white, kept me out of there.

That said, he was actually pretty intelligent, had a wry sense of humor, and was a pretty kind soul.

He likely had some issues, no doubt. Considering that they say that 7 out of 10 people will suffer from some sort of mental illness sometime in their lives, that is no surprise...the odds are there....(And, in my opinion, the remaining 3 in of that 10 are compulsive liars.....)

So, he may have had some issues.

But, can we consider him a hoarder?

Not by the definition Wikipedia has.

True, his kitchen sported some mouse droppings and his washroom was pretty disgusting, and he had stuff stored everywhere....

BUT, the stuff was not stored in his kitchen, though there was various things there, a box or two dropped next to the kitchen table, as he was in the middle of sorting through the stuff from the auction he had just been to, a few fresh buys from the local thrift store, a stack of auction flyers, papers open to auction ads, etc.

But, nothing stored there, stacked up in a way so that you couldn't move.

His dated living room was consumed by an orderly amassing of Elvis memorabilia, the one collection from which he didn't sell much of anything from. But, if he wanted to use the couch, he could, as it was clear, and would not trip over anything to get to it.

When he wasn't at his 9 to 5 job, he was sorting his stuff, organizing, selling, wheeling & dealing, going to auctions, antique shows, antique shops, thrift shops, going to pickers' places to buy, picking stuff up at the local dumps, etc....

Sound familiar?

Ok, so maybe you don't do ALL of those things....but if you collect anything, you do at least a few of them....and more likely several.

That was pretty much his life. Pretty much his entire social life. He may have been an outcast in his community, but he did have friends that thought he was funny & intelligent, not some weirdo.

OH YEAH, he WAS a real character...but who in this business isn't, at least in some way?

A weirdo? No.

Had some issues? Yes, for certain...possibly related to the way he was treated by his family in the past.

A hoarder by definition? Nope.

A collector? Most certainly.

An ACCUMULATOR?

Yes!

So, he had foresight to save things. Some that later became of value..and possibly some that had value, and lost it...and others that didn't gain value.

Is that hoarding?

Naw.

That is collecting.

Now, if he had a cat and was saving the litter box scoopings, that would be another story.

And on to another story....

A hoarder, for certain, this fellow was.

I was introduced to a guy and his associate who were filling a large trash bin with items from an old, damp garage and a garden shed.

My first view of the place was driving up, a pile of stuff stretching into the back yard, a a couple crocks and crock lids on top of the pile, headed for the trash. I bought them, of course.

The fellow was a "scrapper"...

Not the fighting type, though by his stature I would want him on my side in a fight.

He picked up scrap metal for a living. This meant he picked up things like old water tanks, cast iron bathtubs etc, and often by himself. That is the kind of guy you want backing you in a fight...not some muscle bound weightlifter.

Over the weeks I got to know him, as I was salvaging some free stuff, and buying stuff from the piles of stuff he felt may have some value. He was a really nice guy....a character, but a nice guy.

The story of the place was thus:

He was contacted by the trustee involved with the property, as the old fellow who had owned it had also been a "scrapper"...so there was an accumulation of metals on the property.

In the end, he was "hired" by the daughter, who was in her late 30s to mid 40s at that time, to clean out the house, garage, sheds, and yards. The deal was that he could keep whatever he found, other than personal photos and such items.

There had been 16 large trash bins full hauled away by the time I arrived, and the large two story house was empty.

Again, I was both glad and sad that I didn't come across the place sooner.

"Bob" related the back story to me.

The old man had been found in bed, alive, but emaciated. He also had 3 dogs in the house, obviously to the point of starving, as one or all had been starting to chew on the old man.

There was also a 3" thick layer of dog feces over the floors.

Again, there were very narrow pathways throughout, with walls of accumulation piled on either side.

The stench was so bad, they had to punch out a huge hole in the back wall. Oddly enough, when they did, they punched through what turned out to be a false wall in the process, and found a 1930s china cabinet behind it.

While I was going through some of the stuff that was pulled from the garage (many items with 1960s/70s Salvation Army price tags), I came across a photo, which ended up back in the hands of the daughter, of course.

What the photo showed was the daughter, sitting on the family's couch, at about age 14 or so.

On both sides of her & behind her on the back of the couch, were hills of cascading & precariously balanced newspapers & magazines, obscuring the couch completely.

In front of her was a TV table (one of those tin folding things) with about a 7" high hill of what looked like rotting food.

Remember, at the point I came on the scene, I figured she was in her late 30s to mid 40s.

This sad state of affairs had been going on for many years.

A hoarder, for certain, and his wife may well have been the same. I hope the daughter is trying to get/is now mentally healthy.

In those two hoarding situations, I was at arms length from those involved, with a buffer, the person in charge of the situation, the clean-up.

In one, I was not entirely at arms length.

I got a call from a trustee one day, who was going "above and beyond" by trying to help a hoarding client with some of his accumulation.

The fellow picked the back lanes, going through people's trash, and kept anything he felt was usable...which meant more than what you or I would feel was usable, as he most certainly had a hoarding disorder, and judging by the amount of cat feces & stench of urine in his basement, he was possibly, and sadly, an animal hoarder as well.

The trustee was hoping there was something of value to an antiques dealer, that could be sold, thus removing the items, and getting the ill fellow some needed funds.

Sadly, anything that was "something" was in such poor condition that all of it held no value. Add to this that my presence, and my handling items made the fellow visibly upset, which made it all the harder for me to be there. He was having a hard time, and was obviously fighting impulses to want to "protect" his "treasures". My heart went out to the poor guy.

I did my best to try to find a diamond, but barely found usable coal.

Most definitely a classic hoarder by definition.

A collector he was not.

These are but a few of many "experiences" with "hoarder", "accumulators" and "collectors" I have had...and with which I will leave you to contemplate for now. I will blog about a few more of these always unique situations in the future....possibly the very near future!