LONG BEFORE the weekend, the advertisements appear. They’re printed in small type, in the back of the Los Angeles Times or The Recycler. It’s important to take notes: day, time, duration, place. And then you must prepare. You’ll probably need a map. Cash, meanwhile, is essential: a few hundred dollars, or more, depending on how serious you want to be. Then it’s time for bed — as early as possible. Without sleep, the 5am start will be impossible.

Yes, that’s right: it’s garage sale season in the Hollywood Hills. Now, I’ve always hated garage sales. To me, they’re unbearably melancholy affairs — the old pairs of socks, colour-coded and carefully laid out on the hot pavement, price-tags attached; or the chipped knick-knack from a seaside holiday in 1983.

Garage sales remind me of my grandparents’ economic logic: better to get a few pennies for that Barry Manilow cassette, or that novelty duck-shaped telephone, than to see it go to waste. Never mind that avoiding the waste means wasting an entire weekend.

Garage sales in California aren’t the same as they are elsewhere. This is the state, after all, where the billionaire Craig McCaw once held a “backyard clearout” that included the sale of his private island, a 300ft yacht and several executive jets.

Californian garage sales even have their own, upmarket name: estate sales. At my first, in Bel Air, I almost choked up when I realised how young the former owner of the items on display must have been. Had he died in a car accident? Was he a victim of Aids? I felt my upper lip begin to tremble. Then he tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to buy his ski boots.

A Californian estate sale, I quickly learnt, doesn’t necessarily mean that anyone died. It’s a marketing thing to give the impression that what’s on offer is the bequest of a wealthy and recently deceased great-aunt — not some junk cleared out from under the spare bed.

There are other reasons why estate sales are so popular in California. In Los Angeles everyone either moves house or remarries every other year, meaning that most households have at least 25 per cent of their belongings up for sale at any given time. Getting rid of it all via classified advertising would take for ever.

For exhibitionist Hollywood types, the garage sale is also an excuse to show off your home to complete strangers. This works the other way around, too: complete strangers get to see homes usually protected by tall gates and German shepherds.

Estate sales are also an excuse to meet dates — although, in truth, the only people who go to them are married women and gay men.

I mention all this because on Sunday, my fiancée convinced me to hold a garage sale of my own. An advertisement was placed. Street signs were erected. Friends told us to wait for the rush. And at 8.30am, I found myself vacuuming old rugs, polishing unwanted Ikea furniture and neatly laying out cupcakes.

We waited. Then waited some more. Then it started to rain.

At noon, our first and last potential customer arrived. He rolled down the blacked-out window of his purple Mercedes, asked the price of my soaked Ikea desk, snorted, then roared away.

Depressed, we packed up and drove to our friend Susan’s house for food and sympathy. This was a mistake.

“Oh my God,” said Susan, grabbing my arm. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m having Paris Hilton’s garage sale at my house, in the summer. She doesn’t want anyone to know where she lives, so we’re building her a pink tent in my garden. Isn’t that fabulous? It’s all going to be sponsored! Her dog’s going to sell stuff, too.”

And so it seems that, like everything else in Los Angeles, selling junk is unaffordable unless you’re a celebrity with a sponsorship deal. Or, of course, a celebrity’s dog.

• TALKING OF WHICH, an elderly couple from Houston suffered an even worse garage sale than ours when a customer kidnapped their golden retriever, Sassy, instead of purchasing a novelty drinks coaster. “It probably was an impulse, and people that are that selfish obviously don’t consider anybody else’s thoughts or cares,” an upset Charles Caldwell said. He had organised the garage sale with his wife, Jane. “All that person cared about was that he wanted the dog.”

  The couple is offering a $1,000 reward for Sassy’s safe return.

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