My girlfriend and I decided that we have amassed enough junk in our lives that it was time for a yard sale. Why not see if we can get a little money before we donate it or throw it out, right?

Any website that gives you advice on how to conduct a yard sale tells you to contact your town to make sure that you don’t need a permit. I, personally, think it would suck to live in a place where you need a permit to have a yard sale.

For example in Rialto, CA, you need a $5.20 permit to have a yard sale. And, you can only have them during the first weekends in March, June, September, and December. You can only sell stuff you own in your home (how the hell would they know?) and you can’t sell anything “acquired [by] or consigned to [you] for the purposes of resale.” Your signs must be smaller than 864 square inches (which is approximately 29.5 inches by 29.5 inches). Can you imagine watching a cop measure a sign? Hahaha.
 
Anyway, you can only hold the sale for three consecutive days, and you have to return the permit by the Tuesday after your weekend sale. Violation of these rules will cost you $135 per violation. That’s crazy!

But, since I don’t want to negate the money I earn from the sale, I called the town to make sure that no permits were required, and a woman confirmed that, so long as I wasn’t having a yard sale every weekend. If I were, then I would be considered a business and would need a permit.

She also told me that I couldn’t put signs in the right-of-way. Now, I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I was struck with a moment of stupidity. When she said that, I was picturing a yard sale sign in the middle of the road because to me, and most drivers, right-of-way is the right of use of a traffic path to the exclusion of another user. So, I thought to myself,” Why would I put my signs in the street?” I’m so glad I didn’t actually ask her that.
 
After that, I looked up what a right-of-way is: a strip of land that is granted – through an easement or other mechanism – for transportation purposes. Basically, that means the area between the sidewalk and the curb. You homeowners know; it’s the strip of grass that you don’t own in front of your house, yet still have to cut.

I wanted to confirm this with the town, so I called again. It turns out that right-of-way includes telephone poles, stop and other traffic signs, and your mailbox. I know she meant not to put signs on the pole of a stop sign, but you know someone out there would put their sign over the stop sign itself, causing mayhem.
 
The woman on the phone also gave me some super-secret, down-low info: your sign won’t be messed with unless your violation is obnoxious (i.e. covering a stop sign). Apparently, our town police have more important things to do than tear down yard sale signs.