HOW Do You Search Craigslist for Your Garage Stuff?

[Dan in Pasadena]

Tools, vintage refridgerators, workbenches, auto related stuff, etc.

If I'm looking for something very specific, I'll use its name - simple enough.

But if I'm cruising for cool or interesting stuff I'll use "vintage" or some other terms. I'm just wondering what you guys are using? What's you've stumbled on using unique terms?

Pictures (of your "finds"/"treasures") of course are ALWAYS welcome.

 

[olytdi]

I use the minus (-) sign a lot to exclude stuff I don't want to look at (like saws, for instance).

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

How does the minus sign work? If I typed in say, "Craftsman" how would you use the minus sign to make sure it didn't show you Craftsman saws?

 

[Rust]

http://www.searchtempest.com/

 

[Ric in Richmond]

Make sure you set up an RSS feed so you get instant results too.

Get an RSS account.

http://www.google.com/reader

On each search there is an RSS button in the lower right hand corner. Click it then cut and paste the URL into the box that comes up when you click SUBSCRIBE in google reader.

Voila! No more going to CL...now CL comes to you.

 

[Steevo]

I use Searchtempest also.
It lets you search a specific region, or a radius of *** miles, so you don't have to search multiple Craigslist sites individually.

http://www.searchtempest.com/

It has good advanced search functions, such as "all words" "exact phrase" "any word" and accepts modifiers such as the minus "-" sign to exclude words.

 

[Steevo]

How does the minus sign work? If I typed in say, "Craftsman" how would you use the minus sign to make sure it didn't show you Craftsman saws?

Yes. You would type in:
craftsman -saw -saws

 

[darkk]

I buy a lot of stuff from craigslist, not just for the garage.

 

[IONH]

My fiance found our house on Craigslist. I was never a fan before that, now I'm on the fence about it.

 

[THEE MAVERICK]

allofcraigs.com

 

[Supereclipse]

allofcraigs.com

Omg i never knew of this ive always wanted it!!!! You are awesome

 

[VolksDragon]

http://www.searchtempest.com/

This. I LOVE me some searchtempest when shopping for cars, bikes, etc.

Searches the region I want, allows custom filters, etc.

 

[Gary S]

I don't do Craigslist or Ebay. I see too many people having bad experiences. Life is too short to set yourself up for problems like that.

 

[Zeke]

I use the word "project" looking at cars. You see some interesting stuff.

 

[jakew86]

I use many of the sites above. I also use craiggers.com to search "everywhere" to find those really hard to find items.

 

[GRX]

Omg i never knew of this ive always wanted it!!!! You are awesome

That is good. I like this one more. Better search options.
http://craigzoom.com/

Found my '69 Chevy step side truck on Craigslist.

 

[twincam00]

I love searchtempest

 

[dirttracker18]

Its funny you should mention that. I am right at the CAn/US border and would like to search in MN (Duluth and Minneapolis) but I find Craigs list really ***** as far as the set up.

Check out our version Kijiji. Much more user friendly and has many ways to refine your search.

I am very suprised that with all the use Craigs list sees that it is still so poorly set up.

 

[Kny21]

I am very suprised that with all the use Craigs list sees that it is still so poorly set up.

CL is set up like that on purpose, the owner's goal was/is to make it community based.

The best search agent by far was Craigslook, it would do distance from city, surrounding city searches with pics in the results but that was shut down awhile back. It's since come back up as Claz but doesn't do CL anymore. It's just junk classifieds and ebay listings.

I never saw the AllofCraigs before but looks worthy of a try... although the regions might be a little to broad of a range for my taste.

SearchTempest & CrazedList.org are OK, but I'd prefer something better.

If you're looking for something real specific I'd just do a google site search. ex. "batmobile site:craigslist.org" into the google search bar and it'll only search anything with on craigslist but you get a range of results and deleted expired ads.

On the Ipad craigspro ezlist app works great. you can't search multiple cities but it pulls the pictures up in the search so you can preview quicker without wasting time on page clicks, etc.

 

[drmarkr]

I don't do Craigslist or Ebay. I see too many people having bad experiences. Life is too short to set yourself up for problems like that.

So you must still use the newspaper classifieds? The Tucson newspaper has gone from 20-30 pages ten years ago to less than 2. No one advertises there except some of the local car dealers, and the city/county government that is required by law to use them for "public announcements.

 

[DekeT]

I don't do Craigslist or Ebay. I see too many people having bad experiences. Life is too short to set yourself up for problems like that.

Don't go outside it's dangerous out there.

 

[Steevo]

I've tried allofcraigs.com, and found it clunkier than searchtempest.com, and it often returns ads from the other side of the country, when selected region is "West".

I also use the Craigslist iPad application a lot. It allows you to have however many specific cities selected as you want, and will return the searches from them all, divided by city.

 

[Dan in Pasadena]

I use the word "project" looking at cars. You see some interesting stuff.

Ah, interesting. Good idea. I sometimes use, "Hotrod" "Vintage" and for a good laugh try entering "Classic" - Man oh man do you see what some people consider a classic. Ugh!

I don't do Craigslist or Ebay. I see too many people having bad experiences. Life is too short to set yourself up for problems like that.

I laughed out loud about the "Don't go outside" response to this comment. "There be dragons there!"

But I'm sure Gary just means he doesn't want to deal with the complications that modern life (in this case advertising) brings with it. To each his own (smallER world)

 

[carhunter]

Ah, interesting. Good idea. I sometimes use, "Hotrod" "Vintage" and for a good laugh try entering "Classic" - Man oh man do you see what some people consider a classic. Ugh!



I laughed out loud about the "Don't go outside" response to this comment. "There be dragons there!"

But I'm sure Gary just means he doesn't want to deal with the complications that modern life (in this case advertising) brings with it. To each his own (smallER world)

Yes but isn't it odd he's doing it on a computer...

Oh the other hand there's a lot of folks who are just really connected socially, and just find things by word of mouth, or smoke signals or something...

 

[carhunter]

"metal shelves" or 'metal shelving' usually yields some good industrial finds, as opposed to 'shelf' for example

intentionally misspelling works too - holly, muncy, etc

For kicks, search 'badass' sometime...That's a term that's used very loosely.

 

[Steevo]

Ah, interesting. Good idea. I sometimes use, "Hotrod" "Vintage" and for a good laugh try entering "Classic" - Man oh man do you see what some people consider a classic. Ugh!

What? You don't consider a Chevette a "classic"?

 

[Cobra6]

If you are intent on finding a certain item, I would recommend Craigslist Pro
You can customize the search to regions, etc. to find a certain item -

You can download on your iphone or iPad free - it is pretty slick - they have the android version also which I think the lastest version is about the same as the IOS version.

Before I loaded it, I had a friend using it and he always found stuff before I could, and he would see items when they were first listed.

I have scooped a couple of deals using this app - just because I called in first.

 

[matty d]

Here's a simple way...dont know if you will find what you want, but worth a try...

You can go into google and type in what you want in the search engine followed by 'craigslist'.

For example, Snap ON Toolchest Craigslist

This may give you examples of your item outside your geographical area. Since it may be expired, you may want to include dates in your search. e.g. '2012'