Craigslist Fair or Fiend? MAD MOWER (Part 1)

I have been using craigslist for many years to both buy and sell.
What I have found is, you really never know what or who you're going to get.

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The purpose of this article is three-fold. It will contain a bad experience I've had as well as a good, to serve both as a word of warning and to show that sometimes friendships can be made at the least likely times. It will also act as a reference for later posts, since a good many of our recent projects were only possible thanks to the 'friend' from craigslist.

Starting with the bad: Mad Mower

I love my tools and try to take care of them as best I can, but far most among them is my chainsaw.

It brings back memories of a time when we were gearing up to move out here.
Back then I had a list of essential tools I deemed it important to acquire before we set out on our farmstead adventure. At the very top of the list was a good chainsaw.

At that time I saw in my minds eye the felling many trees... and a wilderness tamed.

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Our allotment of funds was slim. Indeed most of the tools we bought were broken. But that's all we could afford, so I quickly learned the ins and outs of small engine repair.

That's when I saw it. A Vintage Powerlite.

Painted red and white, all metal save for the gas cap.
And at $80 I knew I was going to have to dig deep to get it.

I contacted him immediately. To this day, I'm not sure how I got the funds together.

We set a time and date and I received directions, though I was relying heavily on my old hand-me-down gps, so I wrote notes on his directions. The day arrived for me to head out after my tool of tools.

Down beautiful back country roads. Garman told me to take a right and I did, then a left... And another left.. and thats when it came into view. The bane of my professional life, being at that time a delivery man..

It sat there solidly, seeming to drip in fervor. That sickly shade of neon yellow the road crews are so fond of. Detour

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My mental geography ended some miles back and the small gravel road the sign was pointing to more akin to a driveway then a road. It seemed unlikely to lead anywhere you would actually want to end up. It might as well have been the entrance to a labyrinth and, for the purposes of trying to vainly make a long story short, turned out to be no less. The gps, per usual when you need it most, did nothing but scream un-seesingly at me to, 'Please make a U-turn.'

I desperately pulled out the mall scrap of paper I had scribbled on paying only half a mind to what I was writing.. it ended up being a scribble of useless land marks now un-needed. The only information it provided was the house number and road name.

After 3 calls to the seller with no answer and trying to drive in an arc back to the original road, I found a little green sign with the name of Sprinkle Branch. I had found it! While I had no hope of ever finding my way back, I was relieved thinking the worst was behind me.

Finally turning on the right road, I came to a mailbox.

It sat at the bottom of a steep holler accessed by a long driveway. Up in the distance was a double-wide and a man mowing on a rider. As I pulled up I noticed, while the house and yard were respectable, to the left was a hodge podge of old tractor trailer boxes and mounds of trash. That didn't put me off as I had seen worse, though it was unexpected.

I hopped out with the excitement of a man nearing his goal.

The man drove over quickly parking his John Deere behind my truck as to block me in, which seemed odd.. but I brushed it off.

He was a thin man dressed in a blue mechanics jumper. He walked up to me, taking the long way around the far side of my truck, glancing in as he passed going slowly. He came to a stop about 6 feet away and stood, arms crossed.

We introduced ourselves without a handshake, also odd...

The smell of alcohol was strong enough to make you sick, but it was his eyes that caught my attention.

Deep set, glassy and unfriendly. I'm not one to turn my nose up to the occasional beer, especially at the end of a hard days work, but I had never in my life smelled that much on a man so early in the day, being just after 2 p.m.

And there was something in his eyes, stance and demeanor I didn't like. It made the hair on my neck stand on end.

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He began by asking how much money I had on me because up at his house was brand new chainsaw for just $130 and I should come up and at least give it a look over. I could see the saw I came for sitting not far away by the door of one of his semi trailers.
I was not about to go in this unknown man's house, not least of all because it was all I could do to get together the $80 for "that old one," as he put it, but chiefly because he was clearly more than a bit drunk. Many times more than 2 p.m. called for regardless of the circumstances.

I politely declined, saying my heart and wallet was set on "the old one." He scowled, stomped over and said something foul under his breath. It was clear he was unhappy and planned on pressuring me to spend more than we had contracted. He told me what mix ratio to use and thrust the Powerlite at me..

At this point I was feeling very put off and already half wished I hadn't found this place at all.

I looked it over briefly as I was ready to pay and leave without another minute waisted. 'I'll take it,' I said.
'Ok, but there is a trick to starting it, here.' Walking up, he yanked it from me and said, 'All you do is hold down the throttle.'

We had long surpassed the smelling distance of the alcohol. He was now close enough that I could feel it on my face with no more room to back up as I was already pressed against the grill of my truck.

He proceeded to pull on the cord..

The saw roaring to life at full throttle less than a food from my left leg.

He looked up at me with a dark, mischievous, drunken grin. In that instant, my mind quickly sized up the situation. I could not out run him. He was in far better shape even drunkenly wielding a thirty pound powerlite. My truck was hemmed in by his mower. I was pressed against the grill and this mad man was pressing me in with a chainsaw winding out less than a foot from my left side...

The evil grin passed. He cut the saw off and after handing the money over, he left the saw at my feet and returned to his fevered mowing.

There and then I resolved to not only get my conceal carry permit, but to carry religiously because you never know who or what you will get on craigslist.

The trip home seemed to pass quickly and uneventfully as I was busy replaying what had occurred, the tightness in my chest ceasing with every mile.

All in all, I am thankful to have come out unscathed with a fine saw that has re-payed me many times over and is nearly with its weight in gold.

-'The Digger'

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Good story and well-written. I love the sharing economy and both the friendships and the stories of close encounters that it generates. Just wondering though, do you really think the situation would have been made better by having a concealed arm on you? Sure, the dude was an eejit and clearly enjoyed scaring the beejayzus out of you, but I don't think he would have actually harmed you, just a weak fragile ego trying to get off on a brief moment of power. Guns get involved and people die in the blink of an eye, in the flash of a panic. Anyway, just a perspective from a European cousin. We do sometimes scratch our heads perplexed looking over the pond ;)

Oh, and well done on the great find! These are the great pleasures of life!

Sounds like an excellent excuse for a blog post! Thank you! Were both fairly passionate about the second amendment we enjoy over here, but for the time being ill say i wouldn't have done anything until AFTER he chopped off my leg... or at least started chasing me. ;) However I and my wife carried mace for years before we all went in for our CCP's the important thing is to have an argument handy whatever it is... Thanks again! It might be some time till I get around to writing about it but I will!

He he, well that's okay then. Hope you keep a cooler head that George Clooney's character does in "Burn after Reading", it makes me laugh (maybe I'm just sick? Brad just gives him such a charming smile!):

The point of a concealed weapon is the other person doesn't know you have it. Makes any "changes" in the situation moot as the other person has no idea you are armed. This world is getting crazier and crazier by the second. I do not put my wellbeing, and most certainly do not put my family's wellbeing in the hands of a stranger who is "enjoying scaring me". Someone who does that is clearly off their hinges. Over here, you have to be trained and pass exams to conceal carry. The vast majority of that time is dedicated to not using or presenting a firearm unless absolutely necessary.

Hrrrrmmmmmmm. Mayyybe. I knew that comment would spark a heated reply from someone ;)

Well said! You left little room for witch to expand upon in a blog. but ill give it a go at some point! Thank you!

Believe it or not, I used to be a total spoon bender, but something happen to wake me up.. So i understand where your coming from.. Even though im now firmly on the other side of the issue... Take care!

I have never heard anyone refer to someone as a spoon bender. Except Uri Geller. Not entirely sure what you mean by that. You mean you used to make a rake of money through pretending to be a psychic?? ;)

Maybe just to point out that my stand-point is not at all radical for a European, and I totally acknowledge and recognise that your stand-point is totally typical for an American, it's a historical/cultural thing, I get that. But if those are the heights of your arguments for I will tell you that I find them flimsy.

The problem I see with the whole gun carrying thing is that everyone thinks that they are the sane competent ones :) Yeah you can do a bunch of classes and exams and stuff, but seriously, humans are humans, they often make mistakes and they are often idiots (although an idiot would never self-identify as such), it doesn't give me confidence that the majority will keep their cool in a hot moment or indeed even intend to act responsibly. People take obligatory classes and exams for learning to drive and my default mode on the road is to presume that everyone is an idiot, and it serves me well (that way you can only ever be pleasantly surprised). And learning about something in a class can be so different to the reality. For example I've done a bunch of first aid classes in my time, and I had my first major incident to deal with last week. Crazy ex-girlfriend of the neighbour came round drunk creating a stir late at night, drunkenly bashing his car with a chair etc. Upon leaving by car, she made a rapid and sudden reverse movement backwards to where he was standing, probably a misguided notion to give him a fright, but his shin got pretty badly crushed between the car and the kerb. So I go down and it's complete mayhem, the wife is wailing and lamenting, the injured guy is lamenting that he's going to die and that we have to let his son know that he loves him, etc etc, it's dark, he's fainting every turn around from the shock and pain, it was an ugly scene. I'll have to admit I was pretty impressed at how I kept my cool and remembered my training, so maybe it's not a good example! But it's so different to a training situation, I could easily understand someone getting it all backwards in the heat of the moment.

And on the topic of hot moments, I can't draw the exact stats to my finger tips, but, about half of the killings of American women are by romantic partners. Do you think a domestic abuser who has decided he has murderous intentions to someone will be safe because he did a few classes on gun management?? Do you think he won't use the fact that he has possession of a gun as a form of psychological threat and abuse?? I don't think a lot of people realise how widespread abuse is, if you start to interpret the psychological forms of abuse then it is really rampant especially. I have had women who are close to me feel that they have had to go through the house hiding all the sharp knives before going to bed some nights, how safe do you think they would feel knowing there was a gun in the house? Maybe a bit off-topic but that just occurred to me and I think it's an interesting point to consider.

Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns than people in other developed countries.

You have a very sad and tragic spate of murderous two year olds who have to grow up knowing they killed their momma cos their dad (who presumably had done a course on the topic) had left the gun in an accessible spot.

If you look at the below graph you'll see that globally as regards gun deaths the US comes in just behind the DRC.... I mean, hello, the DRC??? They're not long out of a truly brutal and grim civil war. I was planning a fieldwork trip there and my hair went almost white doing the risk assessment and following a bunch of other complications I decided against going.

The thing is I'm not fundamentally anti-gun ownership. It could be a really good thing if there was the right culture to go along with it. Yeah, yeah, there's obligatory classes on responsible gun ownership, but is there a culture of responsible gun ownership????? I have never been to the States so I may be wrong, and perhaps there are geographical areas where this is (cos it's a big place!), but my impression is that quite frankly in many parts there is not. It's all a bit gun-touting gun ho. Now look at some Scandinavian countries, they have such a deeply embedded practical relationship with knives and guns and so on, gun ownership there actually works. Actually Switzerland is a good example and here's an article.

http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/

I get it that your fiat money is probably going to be worth about as much as loo roll soon and so that it's not madly out there to imagine that the US will face some mad crazy apocalyptic times within your life-time due to crazy inflation. And in that instance you're going to want to protect yourself, and because so many people have guns then that would be very dangerous times o be without one. Personally I'm going to train with a sling shot, that's my prepping strategy, I think that might work okay for Ireland. :)

So, hands up, a fairly uninformed perspective, but my perspective nonetheless. I'm sure you would have a totally responsible attitude, although even you might have your George Clooney/Brad pitt moment. Like that drunken eejit who started the saw close to your leg, maybe if you had pulled a gun at that moment he might have "reacted" and the situation escalated ending in someone injured or dead, a distinct possibility.

My two-cents! No harm to ye like.

I really enjoy your writing style! I read part 2 first and then came for part 1.

Just a heads up, The autocorrect fairy changed Foot to Food. "The saw roaring to life at full throttle less than a food from my left leg"

Following for more :) and going to go have a look at your other posts now.
Cheers
Lizelle

Thanks! Were not very computer savvy.. I'm afraid this will probably happen fairly often, but we will do our best.

No worries :) I know how it is after writing a blog post. You've been looking at it so long your brain doesn't notice errors any more. I often have to go back at least twice to edit an article after posting it, even if I'm sure I've caught everything :) Keep it up. You have a wonderful storytelling-style of writing.

Love the story and I think we can all relate to the crazy people you meet on craigslist. I met this one guy that came over to rent a room in my house and wouldn't take off his sunglasses the whole time (even inside) ended up marrying him! HAHA

Thats more common then i ever gave credit to. (glasses indoors... not marriage there of) never cared for them myself.

Oh my goodness! Crazy stuff! At least you got your awesome chainsaw out of the deal.

My daughter, 14 at the time, listed a fireplace insert (the kind you plug in and it looks and sounds like a fire) on a Facebook group. We went to meet the man and apparently he had seen a post of hers with her picture and thought he'd try something. I handed him the fireplace thing and asked my daughter to get back in the truck. I said "You have a choice. You can pay your money and drive off while my daughter takes a picture of your truck and tag. Or my friend over there, Deputy Ferguson in the squad car parked under the tree gets to take a picture of you for your mug shot." He handed me a 100 and took off. The thing was only 30 bucks and I actually have no idea who was in the squad car Lol. (I only had a machete on me, too messy if I had needed it. Glad you got your CCW)

If needs must, a man (or woman) with no horse may let go forth on his own feet :) I'm sure that machete would have served you well had there been need of it!

Good story, keep em' coming
Cheers A.

I'm sure we will.. Thank you!

HAH HAH! Craigslist can be pretty crazy indeed. I have 2 old Homelites that I got off Craigslist and used for a few years until I got my Stihl. I still have the 2 sitting on the shelf next to my new one. I have been deep in the woods and way in the middle of nowhere picking up various items, but fortunately I haven't had that intense an experience.

Your a lucky man!

Hairy indeed! Gumtree is our usual goto here. The last place we went was to pick up an incubator. They were odd, but harmless enough. I thought my hubby knew one of them from work or something, because this guy was talking to him as if he knew him. Hubby took it all in his stride though and humoured him.

Haha I'm sure he did, you get out quicker if you let them believe whatever they want.

Haha! You certainly do! A swift, "yes, we'll take it!" and shoving the money at them seems to help too!

Good story!

Chainsaw did not act in a horror movie? ))

Depends if trees can see ;)

Holy moly, what a story! But... that's an awesome saw! You can't beat an old tool for their quality, and build!

You really cant!

Yipes, I generally only use Freecycle over here in the UK. That's seem quite tame compared to this!

96% of the tine there harmless, But be ready for the 4% at all times.

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