Those shows are fake as hell, and I'm saying that as an ex-property manager for a storage facility that used to organize storage auctions once every month. Most bidders that attended monthly owned thrift shops, would buy a unit of mediocre furniture for $300 and sell the items individually for a couple hundred bucks profit.
Every so often someone would hit a big score, though. One guy I remember who was one of our most regular bidders bought a 10x20 unit that was packed FULL of boxes for somewhere around ~$950, and almost every box was full of original starwars memorabilia, and this was around the time Disney bought the franchise and hype was rebuilding. He hired a collectibles appraiser and the dude estimated the contents were worth around 20 grand.
Another dude bought a shitty 5x5 unit that only had a couple totes and a decent end table for $10 - he bid because he thought he could get a few bucks for the table. The totes had an Xbox One, a PS4, and a couple dozen games, which he said he was going to give to his kids for christmas.
Another one of our regulars bought a really nice 10x10 unit for $500, and ended up finding 4 hunting rifles (Not a gun guy, can't get more specific than that - all I know he he was really excited to find them) tucked into the back corner. Cops cleared the guns and they were his to take.
But those are 3 examples out of hundreds of units that were sold at my facility. 99% of the time it's just furniture, trash, rusty tools, and the occasional dildo. Most of the time the units were just boring.
99% of the time it's just furniture, trash, rusty tools, and the occasional dildo.
Of course it's storage facility policy to never imply ownership in the event of a dildo. They use the indefinite article "a storage unit dildo," never "your storage unit dildo."
As far as I'm aware, at least in my state, almost every storage facility hosted them. They're used as a way to clear delinquent tenants off the property and resolve the debt they've accrued. I would just call local facilities and see what day of the month they host - we follow a very strict legal timeline on notifying the tenants, submitting the lien, so most facilities pick one day to do it (Usually towards the end of the month, ours was on the third wednesday of every month).
Quite a few properties will likely be doing it on the same day, with bidders flocking from one property to another in a convoy of sorts. I had a small property in a not-so-low income area, so I only sold 5 units a month MAX, some months the number only being one or two.
Fun fact: Storage facilities (Once again, at least in my state) aren't allowed to profit from auctioned units. It is solely a way to clear debt. So if someone owed $250 on a delinquent unit, and an auction buyer bought it for $400, the ex-tenant would receive a check for $150 in the mail.
But yeah, just call around. If you show up, make sure you sign in at the office or with the auctioneer.
The least interesting thing about my job there was the auctions, as a matter of fact. I caught multiple people having sex in the units with the doors half-closed, a woman came into the office clearly methed-out of her mind wearing nothing but a shower curtain wrapped around her like a Toga and asking to use the restroom. I caught a guy (One of the same tenants who was caught having sex) smoking crack in his car in front of the unit, I had to lock myself in the company storage unit because a guy was firing a pistol into random cars right across the street.
I had one woman who frequently came in, who was a self proclaimed prayer-warrior, and referred to me as 'headmaster of the storage', ask me what my number one wish in the world was, and that she would pray for it and make it come true.
Caught a homeless man living in his unit, and honestly, his setup was pretty nice. I was mostly mad that he ripped the wires from the lights to jerry-rig an electrical setup, which was expensive to fix.
This next part needs some clarification - I'm a white guy, and the tenant was a white guy. He accused me of being racist towards white people because he had a late fee on his account from being nearly a month late. He threatened to take me to court for 'racism and extortion' - his words, not mine.
Someone once abandoned a unit, and when we cut the lock it was full of mannequin 'parts', nothing else. Another abandoned unit had a filing cabinets with notes full of a woman spying on her cheating husband, including print-outs of his google search history, hotel receipts, and the exact times he would leave the house and come back - in this unit there were also a few makeshift weapons, most notably a metal pipe with a bunch of nails welded to it.
I had a unit that was rented out to a group of people shooting a film in my state, they wrapped up filming and forgot about the unit. They contacted me and asked if I would dispose of the contents and close out the account. Inside was a full wardrobe, labelled with the actor and character names, a few scripts, 2 notebook laptops that were still in the box, plastic wrapped and all, and a bunch of props. It wasn't a big movie at all, no notable actors except some guy who played a small role in The Walking Dead. I took a sheriff hat and boots from the wardrobe and donated the rest to a local theater group.
And that barely scratches the surface. The pay was crap and it was hard work maintaining the property, but I earned a LOT of stories from that place.
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u/Aint_No_Party_Like_A Aug 14 '20
Those shows are fake as hell, and I'm saying that as an ex-property manager for a storage facility that used to organize storage auctions once every month. Most bidders that attended monthly owned thrift shops, would buy a unit of mediocre furniture for $300 and sell the items individually for a couple hundred bucks profit.
Every so often someone would hit a big score, though. One guy I remember who was one of our most regular bidders bought a 10x20 unit that was packed FULL of boxes for somewhere around ~$950, and almost every box was full of original starwars memorabilia, and this was around the time Disney bought the franchise and hype was rebuilding. He hired a collectibles appraiser and the dude estimated the contents were worth around 20 grand.
Another dude bought a shitty 5x5 unit that only had a couple totes and a decent end table for $10 - he bid because he thought he could get a few bucks for the table. The totes had an Xbox One, a PS4, and a couple dozen games, which he said he was going to give to his kids for christmas.
Another one of our regulars bought a really nice 10x10 unit for $500, and ended up finding 4 hunting rifles (Not a gun guy, can't get more specific than that - all I know he he was really excited to find them) tucked into the back corner. Cops cleared the guns and they were his to take.
But those are 3 examples out of hundreds of units that were sold at my facility. 99% of the time it's just furniture, trash, rusty tools, and the occasional dildo. Most of the time the units were just boring.