My Love/Hate Relationship With Craigslist.

The BBQ Pit
1

I have been buying and selling livestock on CL since 2009. In that time I’ve sworn off using it multiple times due to the fact that a good percentage of the people, both buying and selling, annoy me to no end. But, like a person in an abusive relationship, I’ll end up crawling back to it.

Like now.

I raise chickens (right now I have 18 hens and 7 roosters, plus 5 guinea fowl and 3 ducks). I want to buy some more to keep my hen flock over 20 (chickens are not the brightest things, ad that to a tendency to die easily (heart attack, egg gets stuck inside, etc) and you have a high attrition rate) and am going through what feels like Dante’s Inferno to get some.
People with ZERO contact info on their ads. Am I supposed to telepathically tell them I’m interested?

People who live many miles from me and want me to come to their farm, in the middle of nowhere, when it is almost dark out. No thank you. I want to 1. See the conditions the birds live and 2. Even though I’m a guy, that still doesn’t sound safe.

People not answering texts/calls/emails. I understand emails can vanish into cyberspace, but not a message I left you on your answering machine days ago!

It’s not as bad as when I was breeding goats.

People called, set up a time to come out, and never appeared.
People wanting an intact male goat with large horns for their son’s 3rd birthday party.
etc, etc, etc.

ARGHHH!:mad: All I need are some chickens! I’m not picky about breed, or age really, just female Gallus gallus domesticus!

*I usually order from hatcheries, but the heat right now is awful and I don’t want to risk my babies sitting in some mail truck, cooking.

2

I like the for free pictures. Some of it is just garbage! People think someone will haul it away for them. The worst are those with no pictures - people are blatant liars!

And speaking of liars, many Craigslist sellers of stuff totally misrepresent what they are selling. Say it is in good condition when it is not, etc. And these same people will complain like a stuck pig if any commercial business does the same thing.

3

I would sort of like to know more about this.

Then again, maybe not.

4

Yeah… I want a goat for my birthday! (But then my parents will sneak it away after the party, and what? Claim that my present ran away to a Goat Gathering in Glitter Gulch?)

5

For his 2nd birthday they gave him a small female goat, cut into pieces. That didn’t go over too well. They’re just trying to change it up this year.

Damned picky kids.

6

Probably a whoosh, but intact = still has balls.

7

I used to have goats and I cannot imagine any kind of wholesome intent for this request. Intact billies are rank, nasty beasties. The large horns and the birthday party - I truly hope this was randomly worded imaginary request you made up for the purposes of showing what loons linger on the 'list.

8

Reading your post, this is ALL I could think of:

9

Intact male goats intentionally urinate in their own beards, hoping to please the does with their aroma.

And you thought Brute was bad.

10

Sadly, no.
I had a woman call several years ago when I was selling my then heard sire, a agouti Pygmy named Dante.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7274/6889433428_aa61fd7361_z.jpg
Note: This pic was taken when he was younger.

11

So, did she call you and say, “Hey, my son is turning 3 and I thought a billy goat with horns would be a great addition to his birthday festivities?” Or did she call and say, “Oh, he’s adorable, can you bring him to my kid’s party” (at which point you explained he’s an intact adult male with sizable horns, a safety risk around small kids, and an affront to the senses)?

12

My favorites: Free Fire Wood! Click on the ad and there is a picture of a small pile of stick.

or

Free Fire Wood! Click on the ad, and some idiot wants you to cut down their tree and keep the wood! :rolleyes: Great deal. And it always includes, “Must clean up the mess”.

13

Why don’t people return text/email/voice mail messages? If your item has sold take the goddamned listing down!:mad:

I had a 36 inch surround stereo TV I needed to get rid of. Beautiful condition, excellent picture and sound. Nobody wanted to buy it, and Goodwill won’t take tube sets anymore. And I didn’t want to pay $20 to the muni recycle place.

So I put it in front of my house and listed it on the CL free stuff section.

I wasn’t so much bugged by all the people who called and asked if I would help lift it into their car/truck/SUV (one dipshit said he had a Fiat 500 :rolleyes: ) as I was by the people who got pissed off that I wouldn’t. I’m giving you a perfect TV, I am not wrenching my back to help you take it.

The guy who finally showed up and took it gave my daughter in-law shit because she wouldn’t help him lift it into the back of a Subaru Forrester. She was obviously pregnant at the time, asshole!

14

What the fuck, man? It’s my kid’s birthday, and if he wants a Black Mass, I’m gonna give him a damn Black Mass.

15

This is my pet peeve. Looking for a certain model of motorcycle recently, and out of 6 ads I contact, 3 came back and said some version of “I sold that days ago”. So take down the facking ad so people like me don’t bother you, jackhole!

16

Here’s the kind of ad I love: “Guitar with stand good condition, asking $100 obo”

Because craigslist charges by the word I guess.

Sometimes it works in my favor, though. I recently scored a gorgeous, virtually unplayed Daisy Rock 12 string guitar for a pittance, which you didn’t even know what it was unless you opened the ad and saw the picture. Still had the plastic on the pickups and the original strings. I was happy about that. It is a surprisingly great guitar. My luthier who set it up for me even thought so.

You’re right, OP. It’s a love/hate relationship, for sure.

17

Craigslist just tricked me into buying my 16th car. :mad:

Eh, I’ll triple my money in a year on this one. :wink:

18

:smack: D’oh! I can’t believe I forgot this one.

Last year when I had to get rid of that TV I also had a couch that needed to go (we were remodeling the rec room). I put it on the free stuff listing on Craigs List and set it in front of my house.

A day later someone had taken it. Great. :slight_smile:

Or so I thought. :rolleyes:

3 days later we were arriving home from somewhere and there it was, back on our lawn!:eek:

This ain’t a goddamned department store you clods! You don’t bring this stuff back!!

I checked my security system and ran the plates of the 2 schmucks that brought back in a trailer and put it back on my lawn. The next morning at about 3am my son-in-law and I took it to the guys house the plate came back to and tossed it on his lawn. Cripes he lived over 20 miles away. That was a long way to go to get a free, old crappy couch.

That was over a year ago and the last of it.

But if some time in the future I step out of my front door and see the couch on my
front lawn even I’ll think it’s pretty funny. :stuck_out_tongue:

19

So you abused your authority as a cop just to get in some pissing contest with an asshole? Nice.

20

Introducing new Goat Urine by* Billay*.