HOULTON, Maine — With temperatures in Aroostook County warming up and greenhouses finally open to flower gardeners, the region is coming alive with the sights and sounds of summer.
Along with the planting, blossoming and outdoor band concerts comes another sure sign of Maine’s best season — yard sales.
For some residents, they are simply a chance to get rid of accumulated merchandise. For others, they can be a significant source of income and a unique bonding experience.
Karen Melton of Houlton said Wednesday that she starts to get excited every May when she begins spring cleaning her home.
“I start gathering up items that we have accumulated during the winter,” she said of her family of three. “Either they are things that have been here for a number of years and I suddenly don’t want anymore, or they are Christmas presents that either have not been opened or have barely been used. I put them in a corner of the basement and start mentally putting a price tag on them.”
Melton stressed that she doesn’t just “cruelly yank” the items away from her family members without asking.
“I sort of have this time limit thing that I have perfected over the years,” she said, laughing. “I give everyone until the day of the yard sale to notice if the item is missing and to ask for it. If they haven’t said, ‘Hey, where is my baseball?’ than I feel free to sell it.”
She said she typically holds at least one sale each summer, and sometimes another in the fall if she has a lot of material left over.
“The best I have ever done, saleswise, is making $1,200 one weekend,” she said. “That is the year that we had just moved up here and I had a lot of furniture to get rid of.”
In Presque Isle, Jessica Nickerson said that she takes her daughter to yard sales on most Saturdays throughout the summer, just like her own mother did with her throughout her childhood.
“Most of the fun is trying to get the best deal and then lording it over my other friends who love to yard sale,” she said. “I wish my mother was still here to do it, but she lives in Rhode Island now and can only come up a few times a summer.”
Nickerson said that she and her daughter rise early on Saturday and circle the best yard sales in the paper and also watch social media throughout the week to see where the best sales might be happening.
“We usually are on the road for three hours or more,” she said. “My daughter is a babysitter so she has some of her own money to spend. She loves old books and vintage clothing, but I love antiques.”
She has made a number of great finds, she said, including a roll top desk and a ceramic Yoda lamp that she added to her nephew’s Star Wars collection.
Still others, like Pat McPherson of Houlton, like yard sales for what they can create with what they find.
“I love to refurbish furniture,” McPherson said. “To me, there is nothing like finding a cheap chair that someone thinks is worthless, paying $10 for it, and then making it into something brand new that people really compliment you on.”
