My First Craigslist Experience...

I think that I’ve mentioned a time or two that I was starting to search around on Craigslist local boards to find any of my registry items that were in a “gently used” condition. Maybe I mentioned it…or maybe I just think that I mentioned it because I’ve been thinking about mentioning it but with my pregnant brain, I forgot. It could go either way…I’m just saying.

So anyway, I was telling Maid Britney about my plan, and she thought that it was a great idea. Other blogger moms have had great success with this, so I thought that it was worth a shot. Maid Britney was even nice enough to suggest that I extend my searches to Dallas and she would be more than willing to meet up with a seller on my behalf and collect the item for me and meet up with me later. Awesome!

Well, after a few near misses on bumbo seats and changing tables, I found my play yard. I really wasn’t expecting to see my travel system, play yard or swing on Craigslist anywhere since they all seem to be newer models, but one day a few weeks ago there was an ad for the exact play yard that we’d picked out for half the price! I was ecstatic and immediately contacted the seller regarding the ad. Yet, like so many other times in the past few days, I began to get discouraged when an hour went by…and then two hours. By the time that I got home that night and was telling B all about it, I told him that I guessed the lady didn’t still have the item, since she hadn’t contacted me back yet.

And wouldn’t you know that my cell phone would ding at me at that moment, telling me that I had a new email message. It was the seller, saying that she still had the item and would be more than willing to work with my friend. GREAT! I forwarded her contact information on to Maid Britney and let them work out the details. That was on a Friday night, so I waited patiently all weekend long to hear how it went. But the weekend came and went and I didn’t hear anything…so, me being the patient person that I am, contacted Maid Britney first thing Monday morning (regardless of the hour) to see what happened.

As it turned out, they had not been able to meet up yet. Apparently, the seller was sort of “sporadic” about checking her email (on her iPhone) and getting back with people. They had gone back and forth and decided to meet on Sunday…and then the seller didn’t ever contact Maid Britney back about the time. So no meet. I told Maid Britney that she could contact her again, if she wanted, but as far as I was concerned she had done all that she could to make this happen and I would keep looking.

And don’t you know that’s when it all works out? The seller was able to meet with Maid Britney the next day, and she didn’t get stabbed, raped or taken advantage of in any way…cut me some slack – this was my first Craigslist experience and after all the headaches that we’d had getting in touch with them and getting together with them, you just never know. You know? Am I alone in this or what? I made her keep her cell phone on the whole time that she met with him to make the exchange so that I could call 9-1-1 if needed…a little overkill maybe, but possibly we were just playing it safe!

Everything went well, and Maid Britney brought the play yard with her to my Mom’s house this past weekend. After a LONG day of shopping, I decided to put the thing together and check it all out. Here’s what we got… As you can see, J was really interested in helping us put it all together… The good news? I like the play yard a lot. It was pretty easy to set up, even if a few of the steps didn’t make much sense. It was also easy to take down, so bonus points! And the mattress in it with as thick as I remembered, which is a good thing.

The bad news? The play yard that was advertised as never being used (since her baby girl didn’t like to not be held) or maybe being used once or twice was actually missing some pieces. It was supposed to come with 5 animals that hang from the “mobile” and there were only 2 in the bag. The remote was also missing. Not big things, but still.

I tried to turn on the music/light/vibration thingy and that didn’t work either. I assumed that it probably just needed new batteries, and went to check that out before I sent the seller an email asking about the missing pieces. It turns out that one of the batteries in there had busted and leaked battery acid all over the place. I removed the batteries and my step-dad thinks that B can clean up the remaining battery-acid-powder-gunk and put new batteries in and it will be fine. We’ll see.

All in all, this was a good deal, I think. I contacted the seller about the missing animals/remote and she was going to look for them. She knew where the animals were, but was going to have to hunt for the remote…so maybe I’ll get them and maybe I won’t. I tried to check online at the Chicco website to see if I can order just those parts, but I couldn’t find much information. The best that I could find was a 1-800 number to Customer Service to call and order replacement parts. So we’ll see…I’ve got some time to wait for the seller to return the parts or decide what else I’d like to do.

Have you ordered stuff off of Craigslist? How did that go for you? and more importantly, do you think that she’ll actually send me the items???