“You’re always leery of people coming to your house,” she says. For starters, she never does business when she’s home alone and she makes sure all items are out in the garage or driveway. Stohs knows the basic do’s and don’ts of buying and selling online. “That’s a place I hadn’t even thought about, but it makes sense, total sense to go to the ultimate public place that is safe,” says Ankeny resident and Craigslist user Dawn Stohs. “Moving the sale to the police department parking lot can also cut down on the exchange of counterfeit money and the possibility that the buyer is at a private residence to evaluate the area before committing a crime,” says Police Chief Gary Mikulec. The department says Ankeny residents and business owners can use the lot and it is monitored by security cameras 24 hours a day and is well-lit in the evenings. The department hopes the move will lessen the likelihood of falling prey to scams by buyers and sellers in online exchange sites. The Ankeny Police Department is offering up its parking lot as a safe place to conduct Craigslist transactions. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. "We're gonna keep it in the family forever," he said.This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. It's free." Dooley did write him a check, however, for the new air conditioner and the furnace.ĭooley expects to get the house moved to his property as soon as mid-February. Another prospective taker had even offered Dolecheck cash for the house, but Dolecheck told Dooley, "I'm a man of my word. He drove down the next morning, met Dolecheck, and made the deal. "I had a little attachment to the house, so I was glad that somebody wanted to live in it yet," he said.ĭooley found out about the free house from an Iowa neighbor, who knew he had been on the hunt for something that could resemble the original farmhouse his grandfather had torn down. He'd tried to get it moved to the nearest town, then to a historic farm village nearby. He plans to put in a foundation with a full basement, plus a new roof and a new coat of paint.ĭolecheck, who fielded calls about the house from three states away, is happy to see it stay close to home. "I think that's what my grandpa would have wanted."ĭooley expects it to cost between $25,000 and $40,000 to move the house to his land. "I want to get the barn redone, have the old farmhouse there, and get it back to how it used to look," said Dooley. A barn that's still standing is in dire need of repair. But the farmhouse that once stood on the property was torn down years ago. "I think the house will look perfect there," he said.ĭooley still visits the farm to mow and look after the land. Though he grew up in Minnesota, Dooley has fond memories of summers and falls spent on the land hunting and fishing, and of Christmases there with his grandfather. Craigslist 4.7 Wisconsin 2 Iowa 1.9 Illinois 1.6 Minnesota 1.5 Kansas 1.1 IOS 1.1 Android (operating system) 1.1 Nebraska 0.9 Des Moines, Iowa 0.7 Missouri. And Jeff Dooley, a professional house flipper from Anoka, became the lucky recipient of the farmhouse.ĭooley's family owns land just 12 miles from Dolecheck's, 90 miles south of Des Moines, close to the Missouri border. Last month, the ad got picked up by the Des Moines Register and quickly went viral.ĭolecheck got some 500 inquiries. Our same-day service platform instantly connects you with skilled Taskers to help with cleaning, furniture assembly, home repairs, running errands and more. He tried for three years, intermittently posting his offer on the online classified site. So, he wanted to find new owners to love the old house as much as he did. But then, he built a new house on his land. He had painstakingly restored the house to its early-20th-century grandeur and raised his children there. The white house with a wraparound porch was slated to be torn down this winter, but not if owner Roger Dolecheck could find a taker first. It was an unusual ad, even for Craigslist: a free farmhouse in rural Iowa.
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