Octomum Nadya Suleman held a yard sale on Saturday in a desperate attempt to raise enough money to keep a roof over the heads of her 14 children.The sale drew a crowd of more than 150 people and police were forced to shut off her street in La Habra, California, because more kept arriving. Miss Suleman, 35, is reportedly more than a month behind on her mortgage payments and says she is facing foreclosure. But she insist she has turned down lucrative offers to strip off for Playboy or to appear in an adult movie .
‘I’m just trying to put my best foot forward and do what’s best to save my home and feed my children,’ she told RadarOnline. ‘I will never pose nude to save my house. ‘I’m a good mother and my kids come first. We will get through this,’ she added.
The cash-strapped mother put everything up for sale, from an autographed nursing bra costing Rs 1000 to the ‘Octofridge’ that went for Rs 40000. Also up for grabs were fourteen tiny devil costumes the octuplets were dressed up in last Halloween, which sold for Rs 2500, a signed sonogram of the babies and the red bikini their mother wore for a magazine photo shoot showing off her post-pregnancy body.
Other items on the auction block included the sofa she sat on when she announced she was pregnant and a baby-sized ‘time-out’ chair given to her by Oprah Winfrey after she appeared on the daytime talk queen’s show.For Rs 500, visitors could have their photos snapped with Ms Suleman, but it cost Rs 5000 for the babies to be in the shot, as well. Boyd Beaman, from La Habra, paid Rs 1000 for a photo with the mother and two of his workmates so he had a keepsake ‘for nostalgia and for history.’
‘It’s just a matter of survival,’ said Ms Suleman. ‘Food, shelter and clothing. There are financial troubles.’ She was helped at the sale by radio personality Tattoo, of the Rick Dee's morning Internet Top 40 show. Ms Suleman said she has ‘maybe a week’ before the house owner launches eviction proceedings. ‘We’re destitute right now, we’re not doing well at all,’ she said before the sale. Although she will almost certainly have to go on welfare, she said she will try to remain independent for as long as possible. ‘I’m going to do everything I can possibly do not to go on welfare,’ she told RadarOnline. ‘I believe in my mind wholeheartedly that there’s always a way.’ The babies, the world’s first set of surviving octuplets, are now 19 months old. Miss Suleman already had six older children when she gave birth to another eight in January last year.
