It's a midweek afternoon and two men are carrying a lion out the front door, walking past the snarling wolf and screeching baboon that stand waiting in the tiny foyer of Mr. Used's Barton Street store.

One of the old men occupying one of the old chairs gathered in a loose semicircle by the cash register — the only heated spot in the place — sniffs as the lion passes by.

"Hmph," he says dismissively, as the two-metre-long stuffed animal passes. "Dust collectors."

The two men put the lion in the back of a waiting pickup, and then, almost tenderly, load the baboon and the wolf, as well as a trophylike head of what looks to be a wildebeest. The head is nearly as big as the whole baboon.

Watching through the foyer doors, the seated man sniffs again.

"Wouldn't want one of them in my house."

But that's the whole point of Mr. Used. Like the cliché says — one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Mr. Used — Len Wareing — has been filling the labyrinthian recesses of his 70,000-square-foot everything emporium with trash and treasures for more than 30 years (in one location or another).

"Sometimes you have to take the garbage to get the good stuff," Wareing explains, offering that buying strategy as one reason his buildings are stuffed to the rafters with stuff, and now, a compelling reason to clear it all out.

Which is exactly what he's doing over the next two weeks — clearing it all out in a truckload sale he's hoping will make at least some kind of dent in the mountains of matter he has filed away in his odd collection of interconnected buildings.

"I felt it was time to clean up," he says, standing in a cold and cluttered corner of his shop, eyeing a stainless steel water heater.

"Not that," he says of the gleaming tank, "that's too good."

That line probably sums up his sale strategy: Move out all of the inventory that isn't at least "too good" — then reopen with just the really good stuff.

Asked for an example of stuff that's too good to part with, he points out a 10-foot high statue of Caesar ("perfect if you want to make a Roman ruins garden with old pillars") or the 1930s electric lawn mower with a swath all of 10 inches wide — "imagine cutting your grass with one of these."

For a 68-year-old man who deals in used stuff, Wareing cuts something of a dashing figure, with a full head of white hair swept back from a face that probably got called ruggedly handsome back when he was a commercial photographer. A neatly trimmed, white goatee and a quiet, confident manner of speech round out the picture.

After 30 years, Wareing is aiming at the unthinkable — reducing his inventory from 70,000 square feet to a mere 7,000. Herculean is the adjective that comes to mind when one contemplates clearing out all the toilets, countertops, doors, electrical motors, chairs, cabinets, stovetops, rocking horses, windows, fireplace mantels and electric fireplace logs, old sewing machines and slightly less old pinball machines, jukeboxes, radios and more.

A scrap dealer who has agreed to give him his price will clean out Mr. Used, separate out the steel to shred, sort and resell — and landfill the rest.

Although Wareing hopes he'll be able to remain in a portion of his current space, he says he may have to move and has lined up Plan B: Another potential "storefront" for his operation. And if that falls through he'll go to Plan C: Pack and store the inventory in shipping containers.

He doesn't have a plan D.

But whatever happens, the stuff won't be moving in at home.

His wife Nema runs a tight ship.

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"Our house is neat and orderly and dust-free," Wareing says with a chuckle.

"That's all her doing."