Foreclosed family watches helplessly as craigslist crowds strip house bare

10-25-2012 • http://www.11alive.com

A family in Woodstock, who just lost their home of 20 years to foreclosure and are preparing to move out, lost even more on Wednesday.

And it was because of what they triggered when they posted a craigslist ad Tuesday night.

Their online post was just a well-meaning ad for a giveaway in their driveway outside the small house, a giveaway scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

But big crowds showed up and ended up taking practically everything inside the house, too.

Wednesday night, Michael Vercher walked 11Alive's Jon Shirek through his family's almost empty soon-to-be former home.

"Well, when we got to the house, I mean, pretty much -- this," he said as he stepped from the foyer into the living room.

Their home -- ransacked, ravaged, raked over.

Almost everything inside -- gone.

"They came in and just tore the place up," he said.

People responding to the family's craigslist ad showed up at the house earlier than 10 a.m., before Vercher arrived there from work to supervise the giveaway.