REI Garage Sale catastrophe

[Crow]

Here is a picture from a local REI garage sale line, 3 months ago.  Note the wooden structure near the entrance with folks camped out in hammocks suspended from it:

I decided to get in line earlier for the most recent garage sale, but here’s what I discovered when I arrived at 3 AM:

I reckon there’s a lesson to be learned from this. ;)

[Crow]

Of course I have no way to know what exactly happened, but given that the structure collapsed the same night people would have been setting up camp for the following day’s garage sale, and that REI had advertised the garage sale as happening up to the day prior, you can put two and two together.

[Gary Dunckel]

I’m not sure what you are saying. Did REI have a cave-in some days prior? Was the store even open?

For my part, this last garage sale seemed to be a complete bust. Prices on almost everything were much higher than they had been in past sales. My staff pals told me that “corporate” has now changed the way that the garage sales were done, starting with this one. The biggest oddity was that any unsold items would be trucked up to a central warehouse in Washington, where it would all be inventoried. And then what, be sold to a liquidator, maybe donated to the Boy/Girl Scouts? Consider the costs to ship everything up there.

These days, I only hit the garage sales on Sunday, around 4 PM. That was about the time that they drastically lowered the prices, in order to get rid of everything they could. This time they never dropped the prices at all, either day. There weren’t very many people shopping the sale either. I expect that once folks saw the prices they just left.

Some staff people asked me to e-mail the local store manager and give my negative feedback (because they themselves didn’t dare rock the boat), but I think I will just leave it alone.

[Clue M]

I think the obvious thing is to be suggesting that careless hammock hangers destroyed the REI building by using it as a hammock stand.

[John S.]

not possible

[Clue M]

Oh yeah, it probably just reached the end of the manufacturers warranty.    Natural causes.

Totally possible

[Ken Thompson]

Possible, and happened. See the photos? This is why we can’t have nice things.

[Stuart .]

As long as there wasn’t a pool of red underneath, the only harm was a loss of sleep for Casey.

Looking at the pic, I see how that could have been any REI anywhere, with the possible exception of the Denver flagship that’s in a really cool building. The rest have managed to blend into urban and suburban stripmall banality.

I’ve only ever been to one garage sale, purely by accident. I was underwhelmed. Why would anyone get up at o-dark-hundred on the offchance of buying something without a warranty for more than wholesale prices? REI still broke even on most of what they resold.

[Jerry Adams]

I think it shows the dangerousness of hammocks : )

[Ken Thompson]

Urban widow makers. The two hammocks hung above one another puts a great deal of stress on a structure not designed for a lateral load. How old was that structure? Thru bolts or lag screws? Just had to pull apart enough to drop the horizontal supports.

Any more news or better photos on this out there?

[Matthew / BPL]

Observation: the posts appear to still be standing in the after photos.

[Ken Thompson]

Yes they are, but they could have been pulled apart just enough.

[Clue M]

The horizontal support is not standing,   Put some hammocks on half the vertical support,  string up anither tied to the horizontal support and voila.

[Ken Thompson]

Did you notice that there were two hammocks strung atop of one another on both sides of one support? Sproing!

[Crow]

Yes, I am pretty sure the structure was damaged by people hanging hammocks.  While I would have never wanted to dare sling a hammock under somebody else’s as in the older picture, I assume what happened this time is that somebody tied something to the wood on top.  Or perhaps, as suggested above, the weight caused the vertical post to move just enough to detach from the beams above.  Hard to say without being there.  There wasn’t a pool of red underneath, but there were a few small red spots, so I think if there was any injury, it was minor.  REI claimed that nobody was injured but wouldn’t tell any details, and if somebody sustained a minor injury that wasn’t serious they may well have been too embarrassed to admit it anyways.

The store was open the day prior and the garage sale was advertised as happening when I stopped by in the afternoon.  A few hours later, after people would have been setting up camp for the night, and it was destroyed, the store was closed until further notice, and the garage sale was cancelled.  In reality, they had a crew (of arborists, haha) in there first thing in the morning cutting the whole assembly down and hauling it out, so they started the garage sale later in the afternoon, and then had it also the following day.

As for the structure itself, I did have a good look at the wood, especially after it was cut down and there were little stubs remaining.  What looked like large beams were actually a half dozen 2x’s glued together, probably just cheap pine wood – built for appearance only.  The wood on the top of the structure that would have been most exposed to rain, was a bit rotten – not more than 1/4 of the way through but the integrity was compromised nonetheless.

As for the quality of REI and the Garage Sale events, I have nothing but positive things to say.  You do have to get there early to have a good selection.  This was the first time I got there early enough to make the first group allowed in, and wow what a difference that made.  It was also good that my wife came with me, as the time for looking was limited.  I’ve never heard of prices being lowered in the afternoon, but perhaps different locations operate differently.  This time, I ended up traveling to another location to camp out to get in early, then headed back in time to catch this one when it opened in the afternoon.  In total I spent around $1000, but I got over $3000 worth of merchandise – good stuff that I’ll actually use, mostly barely used and in perfect condition.  A couple things needed minor repair, but I assessed that before purchasing them.  REI is a great business I think – not particularly catered to any niche but great for a broad spectrum of consumers, with a fantastic return policy – the garage sale events are made possible by this return policy and the profits from the garage sale make the return policy possible.  I have purchased a fair bit from them via online orders as they don’t carry everything I’d like in the store.  What’s fun about the garage sale events is that a lot of these types of ordered items have been returned and are available for sale as well, so there’s a unique selection every time.  Now if you go in the afternoon, everything’s going to have been picked through and there’s not going to be much good remaining at all.  You really need to get there a few hours before they open so that you can get in and have the best selection available.  And be willing to buy things out of season.  For instance, at the last garage sale 3 months ago, there were tons of down jackets available, since a lot had been purchased and returned during the prime season.

[Matt Dirksen]

Casey/Gina,

Was this the REI in Columbia, MD? If so, that store is only 5 or 6 years old, and would have been built to pretty stringent building codes. If a couple of hammocks contributed to the collapse of the trellis, I’d suspect something got seriously “missed”, either during design, permitting, or construction.

Given the size of the wood posts, and how it appears to be connected, a couple hundred pounds of lateral “hammock” force on the posts should never have been able to “disconnect” the dropped beam holding up the trellis rafters on their own.

Very grateful to know no one was injured.

[Crow]

Yes, it was in Columbia.  I haven’t been able to find any news posts about the incident online…

[Paul Magnanti]

I’ve only ever been to one garage sale, purely by accident. I was underwhelmed. Why would anyone get up at o-dark-hundred on the offchance of buying something without a warranty for more than wholesale prices?

While I know the marketing reasons why a gear sale is on a weekend, for working stiffs with valuable free time, a weekday sale  makes more sense. Most REIs close at 9PM during the week IIRC.

Off course, it is not really about selling gear to outdoor people per se (who would like to be outdoors on weekends if possible)…but that’s another thread. :)

 

[Clue M]

That lady who sells portable hammock stands should start hanging outside of rei garage sales.

[Marc Penansky]

Here is a nifty calculator for forces generated when hammocking.  Playing with the variables gives some eye opening information of changing forces.  Look at the forces as the hang angle reduces and weight of occupant increases.  Pretty interesting!

http://theultimatehang.com/hammock-hang-calculator/

[Author]

Posts