Sold! Castoffs Of Hard Times

IMG_0039.jpgA vacuum cleaner. A hospital bed. A Winnie the Pooh tricycle. Those were among the items chucked into the city dump after a last chance to salvage the property of city residents who’ve fallen on hard times.

The contents of 22 New Haven homes got thrown into the landfill Monday after a monthly auction at the city evictions warehouse at 491 Blatchley Ave.

The morning auction drew one flea market vendor, a couple of first-timers and an elderly man named Russ to a storage space in the former Erector Square toy factory. Cubicles brimmed with boxes of property seized in evictions in March and early April. The couches, cribs and televisions came from homes across the city, from Orchard Street, Chatham Street, and Ellsworth Avenue.

The warehouse is seeing an increase in business over the last six to eight months as more people get down on their luck in a tough economy, said warehouse manager Frank Blee, who’s overseen eviction auctions for the last nine years.

Blee rang a red bell at 10 o’clock sharp. Lisa, the flea market vendor, rushed in with a half-eaten Subway sandwich and a soda. Russ shuffled up to the office, wearing flannel pajama pants and sneakers.

IMG_0027.jpgBlee (at left in picture) handed out the price list in a central lobby space.

The area was adorned with two pictures: A portrait of Jesus and a photo of downtown New Haven in the 1970s. The pictures were not for sale. Mattresses and box springs were not for sale either — Health code,” explained Blee. The rest was up for grabs.

Blee spent the last few weeks fielding calls from evictees making appointments to get their stuff back. Booted residents were given about a month to collect their possessions before the auction. Many came Friday to claim their goods, taking the valuables and leaving the rest.

Some didn’t make it. One woman promised to come in. All she was saying was, I want my clothes, I want my clothes,’” Blee recalled. But she never came back.”

IMG_0032.jpgWhatever was left over at 10 a.m. Monday remained open to bidders’ claims. Bidders put down 10 bucks to enter the auction. Blee led them on a tour through the bins, where each home’s contents remained grouped together in clusters, often wrapped in plastic.

Everything behind the hospital bed is 20 bucks,” said Blee. Someone poked their head behind the bed. No takers.

What if I only want one thing?” asked a young woman, one of the two first-time visitors.

IMG_0033.jpgYou can’t do that,” said Blee. Bidders must take all items belonging to a certain address. If they don’t want the junk, they have to dispose of it — or risk being blacklisted from future auctions.

Each bin is priced not by content, but by the volume that the stuff fills. Bids start at $20 for one to ten boxes. A full bin, about 10 by 11 feet in floor space, goes for $125. Blee said the operation is by no means a money-maker — simply a last chance to salvage some goods before they head to the dump.

Mystery Package

Is that a stereo?” asked the young woman, poking at a plastic-wrapped package of goods. How do I know if it works?”

It’s a gamble,” said Blee. But he did point out some items through the plastic: A walker, some crutches and a baseball bat. (Click on the play arrow to take a peek).

As the crew stopped before a looming pile of boxes from a home on the Hill’s Lamberton Street, Russ whispered 150” into the auctioneer’s ear. No one else bid.

Sold,” said Blee.

The newbies were decidedly unimpressed. (“A lot of junk,” one said.) They said they showed up because they thought the stuff would be free. The city used to give furniture away for free to New Haven residents, Blee said, but stopped a couple years ago. Sometimes info-lines still erroneously pass along the old freebie offer, he said.

As the crew searched for a jackpot among the junk, Lisa, the flea market vendor, shared a few pointers with the newbies between bites of Lays potato chips.

It’s like you’re going to a potluck dinner. You don’t know what you’re going to get,” said Lisa. Sometimes you get good stuff, and sometimes you get dirty laundry.”

A vocal woman with purple braids, Lisa showed up wearing a gray sweat suit. She said she runs a stall at New Haven’s flea market on Ella Grasso Boulevard. She goes to these auctions a lot — other ones, too, at private storage facilities where people abandon their stuff.

Here’s where you use psychology,” Lisa said, pointing to a cluster of boxes topped with a bright white fan. You see this stuff on top is nice and clean? That’s someone who’s taking care.”

Spotting a TV, newbie number two, a tall man in a white baseball cap, laid down $75 for the loot, which came from East Street.

After that, bidding went slow.

What’s The Cage For?

C’mon, people, we gotta buy some stuff here!” called out the auctioneer.

The auctions usually draw up to a dozen curious bidders each month, Blee said. Apart from two bids, Monday’s crowd wasn’t doling out much cash.

Blee encouraged Russ to take a second look at a bin with a large white bird cage.

That cage could go for 150 just by itself,” prodded Blee, an affable man who knew Russ from previous visits.

What kind of birds you put in there?” asked Russ, his eyes growing wide. Big Bird?”

You can put your wife in there,” called out Lisa, if you get tired of her.”

Russ declined to bid.

Unlucky Day

IMG_0035.jpgLisa (pictured in a mirror with a name tag reading Esther”) headed home without hitting the jackpot.

I didn’t luck out today,” she said. She took a final sip of her soda, got her 10 bucks back, and headed for her truck.

Did Lisa think about the Esthers, the evictees, when poking around the makeshift rooms of the warehouse?

Yeah,” she replied, but a lot of people, like drug dealers and stuff, they have some really good stuff. They buy two to three-thousand dollar stereos that I can’t even afford.”

Blee said in nine years running auctions, he has seen some pretty nice flat-screen TVs. He’s also seen some pretty angry people. In addition to running the auction, he and his public works crew go out to houses during evictions to collect the stuff.

Law firms that do the evictions hire state marshals to remove the people and their stuff. When tempers flare, which is known to happen, Blee says he redirects the angry evictee to the state marshal, who’s in charge of the proceedings.

Evictions themselves can get dicey. Tenants sabotage property by ripping out light fixtures or pouring cement down the drain, reports State Marshal Peter Criscuolo, according to a Yale Law School research paper that probed the city eviction process in depth. (Click here to read the paper.)

The marshals go into the houses and arrange for movers to remove the stuff. The city then takes the packaged items from the curb back to the warehouse.

The city doesn’t charge for the service. New Haven is one of the few that don’t, according to Blee. Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts said the city is actively pursuing” the idea of starting to charge for eviction removal. Right now, the city does get to keep the profit” from the auction, but the amount — a piddling $225 was gained from Monday’s affair — doesn’t add up to much.

What about all those unclaimed goods? Under the new public works director, John Prokop, the city has been working on a new procedure that would allow non-profits to look through the unclaimed property after the auction and take whatever they want, for free.

Monday, no such offer was made. A city dump truck backed up to the loading dock as soon as the auction was done. The two successful bidders, who have until Wednesday to remove their loot, postponed their unpacking until the loading dock cleared.

IMG_0040.jpgMeanwhile, public works employees started pitching the first fans and couches into the truck.

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