  If the garage saler's children have set up a lemonade stand it is very good manners to buy some. (Comstock)
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1. If the sign says the sale starts at 9:00am and also says “No early birds” in fluorescent orange marker, it’s really rude to show up at 6:00am and root around a stranger’s backyard.
2. If you’re parking, don’t block driveways or pull onto someone’s backyard.
3. It’s really rude to cut through someone’s front yard or hop his or her neighbor’s fence to get to the sale area. Walk around the flowerbeds and don’t snoop behind the ropes or makeshift walls made of sheets.
4. Grabbing everything you think you might want just in case and then dumping it all in a pile when you decide you don’t want it is really rude.
5. If you break it – you buy it!
6. If you say you’ll be back for it, you really should come back for it.
7. Hiding things with hopes of coming back for them later is not good garage sale etiquette.
8. If you ask the garage sale host if they’ll take offers and they say “No, actually we’ve priced things really fairly”, then it’s rude to keep pushing and expecting a negotiation. Similarly if something is obviously priced at a very low or very fair price it’s insulting to the garage sale host to suggest they go lower.
9. Elbowing, pushing, yelling or talking across another garage saler’s line of view is always unacceptable.
10. If the garage saler's children have set up a lemonade stand it is very good manners to buy a couple of lemonade and then tip the little guy or gal- especially if you’re not buying any of their parents' junk.
11. If the garage sale host has a dog or a young child close by, resist saying “Hey dog for sale” or “whose baby is that? I’ll buy that baby!” You can be sure at least 20 people have already said it and it wasn’t any funnier the first time.
12. Don’t be afraid to make eye contact with the garage sale host. Looking at someone and smiling politely, even saying hello, is not a contract to buy something.
13. It’s polite to say thank you as you leave (as in thanks for nothing or thanks for showing me your junk) even if you didn’t buy anything.
14. Keep your negative comments to yourself at least until you get to the end of the driveway. Try to remember that some of the stuff that seems really junky to you may have meant something to the garage sale host (on a loved one who’s passed on) at sometime in the past.
