My son starting picking up non-running lawnmowers, weedeaters, tillers, chainsaws, etc.. when he was in high school fixing them and selling them for a profit. Quite often the fix was cleaning the carb due to bad gas. He is 24 now and still fixing small engines for side money. He enjoys doing fixing stuff and has become quite the small engine specialist.
Believe it or not, there times when the mower or whatever was simply out of gas and the person giving it away thought it was dead. Sometimes the use of the choke or "ON" switch befuddled people and they would give the tool away. Fairly often he would sell a mower to someone and they would bring it back a year or two later wanting him to fix it due to leaving ethanol gas in it all winter even though he warned them about what fuel not to use.
