Last week my youngest daughter was home for a few days and introduced me to the delights of projectfreetv.com.

So there I am having a bit of a scroll through the 1,000's of series available and happened to stumble across "Storage Hunters".

Interesting series, (slightly annoying presentation and feature characters); but when I tried to explain it to the guys at work today I just got bombarded with heaps of questions.

Why do the storage units have to go up for auction?

Why can't the facility owner just claim the stored stuff for himself?

"I don't know guys, but I know some guys in the US that will know"

Please help me out here, is the whole series just a total sham? or is that the way things actually work?

Cheers
TK

 

The storage operators don't want to mess with time/labor/expense of
clean-up/sorting/sell of contents from lockers that are behind on rent.

Auctions are a way for people to pay them to do all of the work.

Ern

 

Storage facilities auction off units to cover the losses from customers unpaid storage fee's.

 

OK, so getting the impression it's just a scale thing. I live in a town of about 7 000, the whole of NZ is about 4 million.
Are these storage facilities just so huge that the owners just can't even be a55ed going and have a look for themselves to see if they can recover the unpaid rent from the contents, or is there some sort of law that tells them they have to go to auction?

 

IIRC - In the UK you would need to be registered as a bailiff in order to seize property to pay off a debt.

The property owner will not be registered so they SELL the debt legally to a bailiff.

The bailiff (storage hunters) then auction off the contents to recover the purchased debt.

As the contents are unviewed - sometimes they win sometimes they lose

 

I've heard a number of cases where elderly folks have storage lockers, unbeknown to their families, and often when they pass on the lockers aren't paid for and contents go up for auction. I'm also told that part of the lease agreement you sign clearly states that if you fall behind x number of months that the contents are forfeited to the owner to defray storage expenses. There have been some amazing bargains to be had in storage lockers at auction.
Just for info TK there are twice as many storage lockers in the US as there are people. Storage is BIG business over there.

To me it just means that there is too much clutter and hoarding (sez me with a garden shed)
But Murphy's Law says that as soon as you throw something out, you'll need it again. Happens to me often............

 

Shadow's got it right.

Signed contract stipulates what will happen if the renter gets behind on rent.

Contract is binding. The management must follow certain steps in order to put a lien on the unit and be able to auction off the contents to recoup their losses. They contact the renters' personal references, and send certified, delivery confirmed letters of warning to the renters and so on before they can sell the unit's contents

Most of the units are 90-120 days in arrears

More lucrative market is the Moving and Storage companies. People who can afford to have professionals pack and move their stuff usually have better stuff. These are, as Shadow said, often older people who pass and it can be some time before heirs catch up. Or in cases I've seen, the heirs live some distance away and either by choice or circumstance stop paying the rent.
When this happens, it's usually the people who packed the crate that bid on them. They have a good idea what the contents are. I was a proxy bidder on a couple of these crates for a friend who worked for a moving and storage company.

You won't find old motorcycles under tarps or cars at these type of auctions, but you're also less likely to spend a lot of money on a pile of Walmart junk

The professional dealers and resellers are up in arms over these shows because now every yahoo who watches one of these shows thinks they can strike it rich and drive the bidding out of proportion

Around here, the Dept of Defense has auctions on surplus. Want to bid on a turbine powered generator that runs on JP-4? You can do that.

For the ulitmate DIY'er, Boeing surplus store is the place to go. Want to re-foam your bike saddle in flame retardant, closed cell foam that, in the unlikely event of a water landing, will also serve as a flotation device? You can do that

 

The owner of the storage units have hundreds of units. They need to empty bins so that they can rent them out. If they open a bin and take what they want, no one will bid on the bin as nothing of value would be in there.

As the owner, there is just so much crap that you can take anyway. In California, there are crews emptying foreclosed homes so the bank can put the homes back on the market. The workers can take what ever they want as long as the property is cleared buy,say, 4:00PM. I have seen videos where one worker ask another if he wanted a Tiffany lamp. The second worker responded that he got one the day before so the first guy tossed the lamp into the garbage bin. Brand new big screen TVs...in the bin, computers, flatware, dishes, family photos, everything..in the bin. They tried to get charity to take stuff but got screwed but the charities not showing up and the bank got made because the property was not cleared buy the deadline. There is just so much stuff you can take so the rest goes in the bin.

The owners of the storage units simply need to empty bins to make money and if they make money on auctioning bins that's even better as they can recoup some money from a sitting bin.

Can you see emptying sitting bins and hauling all the crap to your house? If people are willing to pay you for the bins contents and haul the crap away, you are better off.

Like panning for gold, not all bins are the mother load.

 

Thank you gents for your intelligent and intelligible replies. I now feel I have a grasp on how this whole thing works.

I always suspected that there was a depth of intelligence and experience lurking beneath the veneer of larrakinisim of the Saloon.

You have proved me correct and I thank you.

Cheers
TK

 

I love that show, one mans trash..... you all know the rest


Aussie Johnno