Are the storage units near you still taking pictures and documents back?

It used to be that all the auctions I attended the storage facilites would say any tax documents, old bills, birth certificates, pictures, personal items, etc you can bring in the office and leave.

I loved this as any less stuff for me to throw away is fine by me plus I'd like to see people get sentimental items back as well as sensitive documents.

Anyhow, now most of the facilities in my area t least won't even take any of this stuff anymore.

I did go to one auctioneers auction caravan type auctions and when he was giving his speech he really was very adament to turn it in to the facility or even contact him personally and he would pay the costs to get teh stuff back to the people which I thoguht was nice of him. For the most part though facilites don't want anything to do with this stuff anymore wehre as in the past they took all of it.

Some do, some don't. But here's another spin on pictures going back to the original owner.

I made an appointment to return some pics. Thirty minutes before the appt, pic owner called and
said she couldn't make it. Would call me back. Two weeks later....no call.

Garbage truck came today. Bye, bye pictures.

In Washington it is state law that personals must be returned.  The managers tell me that rarely do the owners ever pick it up less then 10%.  I always return them just in case.  I have found massive amounts of personals in some lockers others have almost none.

I went to one a week ago where the opened the door to the unit and there was nothing but stacks of papers and files, and they wouldn't even auction it.

This facility also said prior to the auction that all personal documents found MUST be returned to their office.

I'm glad that this isn't a legal requirement in Tennessee.  I don't mind returning presonal documents, but I don't want to be legally responsible to do so.

I doubt that you would ever get in trouble with the law for not returnring something.  All you need to do is say I must not have seen it. Also the way the law reads to legally be required to return it the items must either be marked personal or be in a box marked personal. I do not return 10-20 year old bills myself. Pictures, trophies awards anything with a name on it is a potential.  If I found a Sterling trophy it would not be a personal though. Most of the managers would rather you return nothing since over 90% of the people never come back. Once when I went to return some personals the manager said they had moved to Texas and allowed me to dump them in the dumpster.  I felt bad as the box was full of phot albums of the kids.  I have found nothing in some units other units a truck load of slides from trips around the world.  I would feel really bad about throwing out someones pictures since they can not be replced but on the other hand often times it looks like they have not been looked at since being developed.  I have 3 boxes right now I will try to reurn this week.

Here in Ga the auctioneer always covers those returns during his pre bidding speel............here they ask you to return all pictures, tax returns, bank statements, birth death certificates shot records etc etc to the facility manager who will call the renter and tell them to come pick it up. I do a presort as I unload the lockers opening up each box and removing those items and then when I leave ZI drop it off at the office. Takes a bit of time but makes me feel better for doing it.

Here in Ga the auctioneer always covers those returns during his pre bidding speel............here they ask you to return all pictures, tax returns, bank statements, birth death certificates shot records etc etc to the facility manager who will call the renter and tell them to come pick it up. I do a presort as I unload the lockers opening up each box and removing those items and then when I leave ZI drop it off at the office. Takes a bit of time but makes me feel better for doing it.

California auctioneers give the same advice. Buyers follow it for the most part, but I've had property managers tell me that 99% of the time the former locker owners never show even IF the property managers can get ahold of them.

I recently got 8...count 'em...8 totes FULL of "personal papers"....which were mostly old bills, court documents, receipts and owner's manuals from 10 years ago!  How do you think the property manager would have treated me in the future if I had pawned 8 totes of garbage paper off on them!  I put them in my own trash containers over a period of some weeks until the totes were finally empty so I could sell them.  
I know this is different from really important stuff like family pics, but it does happen.

I agree. There is so much paper that what I have started doing is only taking Photo's, birth and death certificates and tax returns back to the managers. Then I take the rest of the stuff and bag it up for recycling. My trash company gives us a full sized 60 gallon trash bin marked for recycling and they also take bags of recyclable materials and all for free. I buy the big heavy duty contractors plastic bags from home depot and put the paper stuff in that for recycling. Also, some of the local schools take bags of paper for recycling and I have done that also just to avoid dump fees and or huge loads of paper goods.

hey young gun I was there to. roswell rd. Jeremy tried to sell the blocks and board shelves. then told the guys the had to take all the boxes too. His runs are getting beyond the pale. The prices on that side of town have gone thur the roof.

HA HA Young Gun and Terry we were all at the same auction last week. Inside unit previously sold but never cleared and full of bankers boxes hahaah. Bought a couple this week and will do well on both. I'll post results later.