Auction Hunters and Storage Wars

[Bob Coxner]

Originally Posted by Jayjoans

ElJay- I've worried about that for many years, that's why I'm often nosing around on the facility when someone is moving in or out, just trying to get a peek at what they're moving. My greatest fear is to notice some glowing ooze from under a unit door one day.

Goes back to good management, and highlights the industry problem of paying managers based on occupancy.

If you watched American Pickers last night then you know your facility is in the wrong location. :-) They picked a storage unit on Staten Island. The unit went for $5000 a month and the client had been renting it for several years! To be fair, it was an enormous space so maybe $5000 a month was reasonable.

Despite the amount of money that was spent to store the stuff, the pickers actually didn't find anything truly exciting.

I assume either NY laws are different than California or else the facility owner worked it out with the renter but there was no auction. He simply opened it up, with the usual blaze of sparks from the cutting saw, and let the pickers go at it.

[The episode will be repeated Friday at 7pm PT and Saturday at 11pm PT if you want to see your Eastern competition]

[generaltso]

Originally Posted by ElJay

Lapse on the rent and then it's somebody else's problem.

Sounds like a great way to ruin your credit rating.

[Honora]

When my aunt went into a nursing home, we cleaned out her apartment and put some of her things in storage. It was cheaper than paying rent on the apartment, but if she wanted something for her room, like a lamp or something, we could get it. When she died we went through it again, took some of the things with sentimental value and let a consignment shop take care of the furniture. It worked out well for us.

[JFriday]

Originally Posted by netringer

That's me. I rented a unit to store my Mom's stuff because my place, which is huge, already has 3 bedrooms used for nothing but storage of junk.

I just recently had the inspiration that I can invest $3000 in erecting the storage shed in the backyard and put the dining set in my kitchen, and be ahead on my $89 a month in no time.

3 bedrooms of junk, building a shed to store more junk? Perhaps you should contact Hoarders.

[rawbi01]

Because of the this thread I 've watched both shows. I think I like Auction Hunters better. I'll probably watch both though...

[netringer]

Originally Posted by JFriday

3 bedrooms of junk, building a shed to store more junk? Perhaps you should contact Hoarders.

But, but, but there's not a opossum in any of the piles.

I have two households worth of stuff that has to be sorted and disposed of. I will be working on it.

[DevdogAZ]

Originally Posted by Bob Coxner

If you watched American Pickers last night then you know your facility is in the wrong location. :-) They picked a storage unit on Staten Island. The unit went for $5000 a month and the client had been renting it for several years! To be fair, it was an enormous space so maybe $5000 a month was reasonable.

Despite the amount of money that was spent to store the stuff, the pickers actually didn't find anything truly exciting.

I assume either NY laws are different than California or else the facility owner worked it out with the renter but there was no auction. He simply opened it up, with the usual blaze of sparks from the cutting saw, and let the pickers go at it.

[The episode will be repeated Friday at 7pm PT and Saturday at 11pm PT if you want to see your Eastern competition]

Was it actually a storage facility, or was it just a regular warehouse? Perhaps the laws governing storage facilities are different than a traditional landlord/tenant relationship with a warehouse.

[Bob Coxner]

Originally Posted by DevdogAZ

Was it actually a storage facility, or was it just a regular warehouse? Perhaps the laws governing storage facilities are different than a traditional landlord/tenant relationship with a warehouse.

They said storage facility and there was a separate door for that unit. Being New York, it was a multi-story building rather than the more common single story facilities elsewhere. Anyway, as I noted, the episode will be repeated on Friday and Saturday so you can check it out for yourself.

[pmyers]

Just watched 2 new Storage Wars. Pretty funny to see Daryl get stuck twice trying to run the price up on 2 units. Amazing that he found that coin/silver collection in there!

It is strange that we never get to see ANYBODY else bidding on a unit. It's just always between these guys.

[ElJay]

Storage Wars has great cinematography.



What?

[Ment]

Don't stare at those too long or you'll end up stupid like the husband. Brandi's 'I can't believe I'm married to this moron' glares at her hubby are pure gold.

[pmyers]

I think I'm liking Storage Wars better as you get to see the whole story: how most of it is either just trash or $1 and $2 trinkets they use to stock their thrift stores. Auction Hunters seem to be just about the 1 in a million scores.

If I ever thought that my wife had such a low opinion of me, as Brandi seems to have about her husband....let alone would go on tv and say it....we'd have some BIG problems!

[Ment]

Originally Posted by pmyers

If I ever thought that my wife had such a low opinion of me, as Brandi seems to have about her husband....let alone would go on tv and say it....we'd have some BIG problems!

Don't worry, she only says it to her girlfriends..

[pmyers]

Just as long as I don't know about it! lol

[Hank]

This thread is better than either/both of these shows! Thanks for the true "reality" Jay.

Originally Posted by pmyers

It is strange that we never get to see ANYBODY else bidding on a unit. It's just always between these guys.

It's just like IRT -- they need to make the audience identify with certain characters -- people who have signed deals to be filmed, etc. Unless it's a real documentary, I can't imagine the producers filming everyone who bids and wins on a unit. After a couple of shows, you start to see how the producers intentionally portray each character and their story, and if they're a good guy, bad guy, newbie, old fart, *******, bickering couple, etc. It's much more about drama than actual "reality".

[MarkofT]

Reality is drama. There are nice people, mean people, bickering couples everywhere.

I've seen other bidders on some of the lockers. There will be a bid that they don't attribute to one of the main characters but the big guys always get the win. Most of the crowd is looking to pick up a small locker with items they can hawk at the local swapmeet. They are not going to spend money unless the locker is full and it goes cheap.

[jradosh]

There are a couple of auctions within a few miles of my house next week (30th). Maybe I'll take the day off and buy a few units and make thousand$ of dollar$.

[YCantAngieRead]

I watched a couple of episodes of Storage Wars last night. I made the mistake of watching one episode at 2 AM, and then I was up another hour and a half watching it.

This thread, also, is awesome.

[Frylock]

[quote=pmyers;8283593

If I ever thought that my wife had such a low opinion of me, as Brandi seems to have about her husband....let alone would go on tv and say it....we'd have some BIG problems![/QUOTE]

Really? I think he needs to be counting his lucky stars he landed Brandi!

[vertigo235]

Yeah the sad thing is, it seems like everything she says is right.

[MatrixOutsider]

Picking up on this old thread...

Storage Wars is highly edited and/or staged. A stack of money behind an old painting? And Darryl knew where to look right away? Give me a break!

A stack of valuable newspapers? A storage unit filled with unopened (probably stolen) electronics? A huge unit filled with brand new restaurant equipment?

If did not intend to pay my monthly bill, I would run down to my unit and remove all the valuable stuff at the very least.

[Frylock]

Originally Posted by MatrixOutsider

Picking up on this old thread...

Storage Wars is highly edited and/or staged. A stack of money behind an old painting? And Darryl knew where to look right away? Give me a break!

A stack of valuable newspapers? A storage unit filled with unopened (probably stolen) electronics? A huge unit filled with brand new restaurant equipment?

If did not intend to pay my monthly bill, I would run down to my unit and remove all the valuable stuff at the very least.

I don't see how this is really surprising. If it was a show about buying a bunch of junk every week, who would watch? I am sure these places are auctioning off more than 3 units at a time. So they clearly are not showing every auction or every unit. So they likely just film A LOT and then edit it down to the more interesting parts. No surprises there.

[Jayjoans]

I just read about a new scam that recently happened at a storage facility auction. The unit sold at auction for over $2500. It was a very clean and well organized unit, with boxes labeled with the names of power tools on them. It showed all of the signs of a unit with items of value in it. The winning bidder was not a rookie, he was a seasoned veteran of storage auctions.

After winning the bid and entering the unit, he found all of the boxes were either empty or filled with trash. There was no value whatsoever.

Turns out that the people that had rented (and defaulted) the unit were auction bidders themselves. They rented the unit, filled it with the crap from other units they had won and organized it in such a manner that they knew it would look inviting at an auction. They stopped paying the rent, and it went to auction. The amount owed on the unit to the facility was $900. When it sold for $2500, the unit renters (and scammers) received the amount over what was owed on the unit, $1600.

That's one way to make trash pay, but you can bet the story won't end here. I'm sure there will be claims of fraud and collusion on the part of the facility manager, and maybe there was.

[Hank]

Wait? Is that the way it works? That the renter gets all proceeds above and beyond the past-due rent? Doesn't sound right to me. Unless state law superceeds it, I'd write the rental contract that if the unit rent goes unpaid for x months, that all contents become the property of the landlord. And the landlord should reap the bonuses above and beyond the past-due rent.

[scooterboy]

I agree with Hank - that makes no sense at all (unless the OP did a horrible job describing what happened).

Why would the "unit renters" profit from this at all? They don't get the money from the auction, do they? And there's nothing in the story that indicates the facility manager(s) was in on it, either.

[vertigo235]

Originally Posted by Hank

Wait? Is that the way it works? That the renter gets all proceeds above and beyond the past-due rent? Doesn't sound right to me. Unless state law superceeds it, I'd write the rental contract that if the unit rent goes unpaid for x months, that all contents become the property of the landlord. And the landlord should reap the bonuses above and beyond the past-due rent.

Well, according to JayJoans who owns a stowage facility in CA, yes that is how it works.

See his post in this thread, #4 to be exact.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...66#post8262966

[scooterboy]

Originally Posted by vertigo235

Well, according to JayJoans who owns a stowage facility in CA, yes that is how it works.

See his post in this thread, #4 to be exact.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...66#post8262966

Thanks for that reminder. Now I see how the scam might work. Interesting...

[Jayjoans]

Hank- I wish it was as easy as that. Every state has specific storage statutes that govern what happens in the case of a tenant not paying the rent. There are VERY specific, and one misstep on the part of the facility in following those statutes to the letter can lead to financial catastrophe.

The real downside to the industry due to this TV show is now it seems that judges are inclined to believe the delinquent tenant when they say their unit was full of valuable items. The Judge thinks back and remembers seeing a TV show where the guy found gold bullion in a trash bag and awards the delinquent tenant huge damages. The upside to the industry is that the number of auction attendees has tripled, and in many cases the units are selling for far more than they used to.

In the case of an auction, if the person actually did have some items of value in the unit and the bid went way over what was owed for the storage rental, it only makes sense that the overage belongs to the tenant, not the facility. The proceeds are kept for a period of time for them to claim, after which it goes to the county or other prescribed government entity. If storage facilities got to keep all of the proceeds, you could see how that could be abused to the detriment of the tenants.

Renting to an active military member that goes into delinquency is a whole different kettle of fish. Selling their items without going through all the hoops is a federal criminal offense, punishable by prison time.

[Hank]

Wow.. thanks for the refresher. So how can you the bidders protect themselves from such a scam designed to take advantage of bidders like that?

[vertigo235]

Originally Posted by Hank

Wow.. thanks for the refresher. So how can you the bidders protect themselves from such a scam designed to take advantage of bidders like that?

Well just bid for what you can see basically.