WAUPUN — A “perpetual” rummage sale in town has led to the discussion of a new ordinance at the Special Common Council Meeting held Tuesday, June 24, 2025.
The issue primarily deals with a property on the corner of E Franklin St and N Forest Ave. Mayor of Waupun Rohn Bishop said that the residents have been holding a rummage sale in the front yard for several months, packing all the items on their porch under a tarp overnight. Neighbors have complained to the City about the seemingly permanent rummage sale, seeking code enforcement on the property.
The City has been looking into similar ordinances from other communities in the area, including Fond du Lac, Horicon, and Whitewater. The agenda packet included examples from some of the communities they were researching.
City Administrator Kathy Schlieve said it was very common for cities to have ordinances about residential yard sales, often limiting how many days in a given period a yard sale can be held at a given property. An example she gave was twelve days in a year, but no more than three days in a row.
The item was brought to the Council to find out if it was something the Council would be interested in adopting.
Schlieve also said that it could be covered by ordinances restricting junk from being permanently kept in publicly visible areas of the yard. The ordinance in the City of Fond du Lac has a provision about visibility being blocked from the public by fencing. Another ordinance in Horicon empowers the local police department to clean up the junk and bill the resident.
However, seeing as the City has had issues with perpetual yard sales in the past, Schlieve recommended passing an ordinance that explicitly covers it.
“What I don’t understand is that properties like this exist in Waupun and I don’t know how,” Mayor Bishop said, “They don’t pay their taxes, they’re constantly years behind, and then they run all this junk in the yard, they put a tarp on their porch, the place looks like crap and the neighbors don’t like it. The one thing I know is that if I did this with my house it wouldn’t last three days, the City would likely shut me down—I just don’t know how these slummy properties get away with it as long as they do.”
Alderman Jason Westphal noted that a similar issue came up a few years ago when the house next to Guth’s drive through had constant tent sales. Schlieve said that the resolution to that incident may have been counting the tents as a “permenant structure” due to the length of time they were set up, which was covered by the existing ordinances.
Alderman Pete Kaczmarski asked City Attorney Dan VandeZande about how difficult it would be to enforce, to which Attorney VandeZande recommended the City persue yard sale restrictions. VandeZande said that while the City might be able to enforce the “junk” ordinance on the property, many items in the sale could still hypothetically be sold, so the City would be better covered with an explicit ordinance on yard sales.
He also said that in relation to junk, current City statutes gives the City the ability to summarily clean the yard of a property and charge the property owners, typically after several citations and warning letters that go ignored. However, it is typically only covered when it’s in a visible location in the yard, not behind a fence.
VandeZande recommended not only considering a perpetual sale ordinance, but also to clean up the junk ordinance as well.
Alderman Kaczmarski then asked Chief of Police Jeremy Rasch if he wanted to comment on the ordinance. Chief Rasch said there are several properties that accumulate junk in their yards, and that it takes a lot of time and effort for code enforcement. Rasch recommended tracking perpetual rummage sales if necessary.
The potential ordinance was a discussion-only agenda item, and a draft will be presented at a future meeting. Mayor Bishop asked if they would follow up in July with a draft, and pass the ordinance in August, which City Administrator Schlieve said they would look into.
