Man to auction life--house, car, job, friends--online
By Rohan Sullivan
Associated Press
First Posted 14:04:00 03/18/2008
Filed Under: Lifestyle & Leisure, Auctions, People
SYDNEY, Australia -- A painful breakup with his wife has prompted a man to put his entire life -- his house, his car, his job, even his friends -- up for sale online in an effort to start over.
Ian Usher, a British immigrant to Australia, said Tuesday he would auction everything he owns and more on e-Bay starting June 22.
"On the day it's all sold and settled, I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else at all," Usher says on his Web site.
Up for bid is Usher's three bedroom house in the western city of Perth and everything inside it, his car, motorcycle, jet-ski and parachuting gear.
Usher says he is also selling a one-time introduction to his friends and a trial run at his job -- a plan endorsed by his friends and his employer.
In media interviews on Tuesday, Usher said he wants a fresh start after realizing that most things in his current life remind him of the relationship he had with the wife of five years whom he broke up with more than a year ago.
"Everything that I have -- the furniture in the house -- all has memories attached to it," Usher, 44, told Seven Network television. "It's time to shed the old, and in with the new."
Usher said his life will be sold in one lot, and that bidders should expect to pay more than 420,000 Australian dollars (US$390,000; €250,000), which is the upper end of a realtor's valuation of his house that he has posted online.
Joy Jones, who co-owns the rug store in Perth where Usher worked as a shop assistant, said she liked the auction idea and wanted to help out. Joy Jones Rugs is offering the successful bidder a two-week trial, which could be extended for three months and then become permanent if it works out.
"When Ian came with this idea -- because we had seen him go through a breakup of marriage and pain and bits and pieces -- I thought it was really exciting," Jones told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "We thought, why not give it a go?"
Usher said his friends in Perth had also proved willing to be introduced to the highest bidder -- allowing him to advertise his auction as offering a complete lifestyle.
Usher, who was born in Darlington, England, plans to open the auction at noon Perth time (0300 GMT) on June 22 and accept the last bid exactly one week later.
He said he hopes to set off traveling, including a visit to his mother in England, as soon as the auction is over.
"My current thoughts are to then head to the airport, and ask at the flight desk where the next flight with an available seat goes to, and to get on that and see where life takes me from there," he wrote online.
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