Wauwatosa, WI Sign Regulations: Garage Sale Signs (2026)

Wauwatosa's rummage-sale sign rule sits inside the dedicated Rummage Sales chapter rather than the general sign code. Section 15.36.060 allows a residential property holding a rummage sale, or a property participating in an approved neighborhood association sale under Section 15.36.050(B), to display no more than one sign per residential lot. The sign may only go up on the property where the sale is actually happening, not a neighbor's yard or a vacant lot nearby, and it cannot exceed twelve square feet in area or stand closer than five feet to the nearest lot line. Section 15.36.060 also cross-references signs displayed inside a parked vehicle to Section 11.32.040(C) of the code for that provision's own vehicle-sign standard.

Timing is addressed separately: Section 15.36.070 requires that all rummage-sale signs, regardless of location, be removed within twenty-four hours of the close of the sale. That takedown duty is not tied to the sign being on the seller's own property; it applies to every sign associated with the sale wherever it was placed, including any sign posted for a neighborhood-association event.

Because signage is regulated within Chapter 15.36 rather than the citywide sign code, violations of the size, placement or twenty-four-hour removal rules are enforced the same way as the rest of the rummage-sale chapter: Section 15.36.080 makes any violation of the chapter subject to the code's general penalty provisions, with a citation issued under Section 1.24.010 and Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 800.