searching for a way to search for a way

[adrian_turtle]

to search for shoes in the hallway. The last is not actually difficult, just untidy. I'm looking for one of those racks to hold shoes by the door. I like leaving my slippers there when I'm out, and leaving my boots and shoes there the rest of the time. The old one is falling apart, and I'd like one that's as narrow as possible. The current one is 6-shoes wide and 2 shoes high, and never full. I'd like something 4-shoes wide and 3 shoes high. Or 2-shoes wide and stackable.

Online vendors sell a great many shoe racks of the type I already have. Some (perhaps most!) of them are not falling apart. But once I start searching with modifiers...gevalt. I'm not sure how much of the problem is the search engine AI and how much is that "shoe rack" and "narrow" and "stackable" are not usefully descriptive in this space.

Which drives me to what we used to call the lazyweb. It doesn't feel lazy to ask you. It feels safer to interact with you than to deal with google or other search engines that will push all kinds of shoe racks at me to the ending of the world. (It feels like this even though I already asked google and duck duck go, though not yet facebook even though fb includes more local people who might say "oh, I have one in my attic!")

ETA: I'd be perfectly happy to find a store that sold racks of this non-standard size, and give them my money. The problem is that the size is non-standard, and most stores will say either "would you like one of these standard sizes?" or "look at our AI-searchable catalog."

Comments

[sonia]

Re: people having one in their attic, it might be worth requesting on https://trashnothing.com . I checked and there are groups in your area. Good luck with your search!

[kate_schaefer]

Ditto on trashnothing. I mostly use it to get rid of perfectly useable stuff, but I have also used it to acquire perfectly useable stuff.

[evalerie]

Sonia -- That's a good point. Where I live, we have a local group on Facebook called "Buy No Things Ann Arbor" that is a good place to ask for particular items, and to offer unwanted items that you want to get rid of. When you ask for something you often get offered a lot of things that are not even remotely what you had in mind, but sometimes a good match turns up.

[adrian_turtle]

Thank you for reminding me! This weekend is what they call "Allston Christmas," when people in my neighborhood put everything they don't want out like a big free yard sale. I should go out with a tape measure.

[sonia]

That sounds like a fun event!

[evalerie]

I like that idea!

[elusiveat]

There's also https://freecycle.org/, which was spruced up a couple years ago, and works quite well.

[evalerie]

Maybe a thrift shop? That way you can see it in person to decide if it's right for what you have in mind. Though this seems like the kind of item that would take a lot of thrift shop visits before it would turn up, so it's not the fastest approach. Visiting a large thrift shop would help -- like for example the local Kiwanis sale is where I live is huge, so it might be the kind of place that stands a better chance of having some options to look at.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks! This does seem like a situation where a car would be useful. My mother always argued that I "should have a car for emergencies," despite my belief that emergency situations are generally not improved by my driving.