1.   Throw you TV out the window and everything you saw on storage wars, auction hunters  et al.  is fake  and a massive lie to sell advertisement.

2.   Do you really have $50 or $1000  to gamble?
3.  Do you have the time to deal with buying a unit.. im not talking going to the auction   Im talking..you bought one  know you got to clean it out.  Most storage place have very hard and fast rule about cleaning it out...   The big chains   its all about clearing it out and re renting it
be prepared to move  it they dont care if you have no way to move it or no where to go with it... some will let you rerent  unit  and some will not at all.
4.  moving a unit can be a *****   I cant belve all the old people and those n walkiers  and people trying to load units into hatch back toyotas.   If you dont have a truck or larger vechile forget it .  Of if you want your cadillac escalade covered in mouse poop in the back   this is not for you
5.  Are you ready to sell the cheap $1 items out at the fea market every weekend?   If you arent you will fail with in 6 months.
thats why the only reguler buyers ive seen make in last 3 years are mexicans...the whole family workds togther including the kids
If  you think you will jsut buy the great one here and their like berry   you will fail    and you will throw your money away
if your old and only looking for collectiables  and only want to deal with that ,  got to auctions at auction houses  you wont do it at storage places.
6.  Prepare to treat this like a full time job.. I do  and when part timers come around   I make sure you dont buy anything  or I run it up so high   you wont be back
7.  Got to know alot.....ya, I know.  But do you know how to do ebay and amazon and craigslist .  Can you look at stuff and know it needs to be checked by proffessionals  or are you wasting everyones time?   Ok you got some gold jewelry...whos going to give you best price?  whos going to screw you?     first any store you will be lucky to get 70%    I get   95%  casue I know guys   and they get better then me  but they buy wholesale lots  and they have to have like 12-14 ounces to get that   Im lucky to usualy sell 3 grams
have a eyepiece to look for markings on jewelry   have a scale to weigh grams    and shop around   you put any costume jewelry out at flea maket  the gold and silver buyers will be all over it   talk to them  and see who you can trust and who giveing best price...
also go on ebay buy a acid tester kit   its like $10 bucks  and have a magnet handy at all times     works for silver, alluminum, brass and others metals you better get to know for scrap value
8.  Get to know your competition  some auction buyers only want furnitre  some only want boxes.   so if you get furnitre  sometimes you can make a deal they take it right out of unit  you get some money   AND YOU DONT HAVE TO MOVE IT
9.   Manges can be your best friend our your worst nightmare....get to know the managers...if you talk to them before and work with them sometimes you can get more time...They all have a boss and they want this unit cleared and re rented...Then dont want a no sale where they have to clean it out themselves  they dont want people leaving stuff   for same reason   just talk to them  and most will work with you...Some  like PS cant  they are on a 48 hour thing or all hell comes down    so realize that before you buy
10.    Every get rich scheme you have ever saw  is a lie...this is just the latest.....Some people will make it  but  99% of you wont

Ok Im only talking about colorado and states around us I have bought at,  dont know what othere states do.   Colorado states after 30 days units can be disposed of by owner for back rent.  Nothing about auctions nothing about selling goods   just DISPOSING....  Ok   most big chains auction them.... Lets take PS    all PS cares about is getting the unit cleaned out and its to legality.  They want to re-rent it  as fast a possible as their a publicly traded company their earning statments are on how full their faciltiies are as its  GURENTEED MONEY.   they dont care about how much a auction unit brings thats why  every PS storage auction Ive been at   its   "clear it out in 48 hours"    Or re-rent it for a month.. Its all the same to their spreadsheets
No individually owned places  Ive seen them pull all kinds of crap.   Either just completely keep it to them selves  never have an auction..
Or NOOBIE ALERT
heres what most do.....they take all the left stuff from units  or litterly what they leave outside unit if they dont have room in truck... Its like eviction stuff..   put it in to  an empty one and try to sell it.   Becasue if they have to dumpster it all can cost them up to $200 or more extra.    See this all the time with small independently owned storage facilityes
Now you have to understand  they love the storage shows now...they dump this on noobs  for hundreds of dollers and laugh the whole time...   Ive litterly been at a small independent one  and was only me and a noob ..  I saw that was a totall set up   I refused to bid   the noob without prodding offered him  $200  for it   we both about fell over.  Walking back to the office he almost laughed in guys face and then to add on  told him had to be out in 5 hours.

Most storage managers last a couple years then gone or fired.  If I had to pay to come to their auctions Id never show up again.  But I'd jsut wait tell their fired or the place changes hands.
They used to beg me to buy their units for a $1 so they didnt have to hire a hauling company and put it on their books and it looked bad to the owner.  Now every unit is sold now matter how bad it is...but It will end  its going to take awhile but it will .  Just like flipping houses , beanie babies,  and all those stupid things that only the people telling you how to make "money" doing what they do..They are the only ones making money

Ok im talking to the old time buyers.   We know what manager specials or abandoned units are.  Part of the business -but back in the day the managers told us that they took stuff left in other units compliled it in one to get rid of it.
But in last year their been a phenomen; I call, manager greed.   These mostly are independently owned storage places or ones that are maybe 4-5 places at most.  PS  or mini-u  never seen it, U-store (cubesmart)  dont think they are but they still dicking around.  Ive seen many made up units by managers with the help of auction buyers in last year. Yes your fellow auction buyers colluding with managers to make up these units to sell.  Think about it the buyer knows how to set it up to make it look like a good unit and the manager gives them a 10x10  or so and they split the money.  And once you hand them the money really nothing you can do.   I knew the places in town that the managers set up units not to make money but just to get rid of the **** left behind.  Now they think they can make money...and they can because newbies buy into it.   It got so bad at one place  they went from 45 buyers  to 3 buyers the next month

As to storage shows.  They are all fake.   They recently did auction hunters here in denver,  I was at one place  the producer came up to me before auction and told me to bid  he would pay for my unit and to make it "dramatic"
well they picked the worst place in town  all crap   But I spoke to Allen and ton for over 4 hours as we waited.
Allen has done this but he is an actor. Ton has no idea  how he got roped in i dont know.  Allen sorta knows his **** but tons along for the ride.   They bought one crap nothing unit near the end  to say they bought one.   After it was over they made the crowd stand around a closed locker and film me bidding against Allen and ton...had to do multiple takes 
me winnning some
me losing
me talking smack
them talking smack
next day I go back  to pick up the one liittle 5x5 I bought   they were loading up that crappy unit with stuff and filming them coming out of the unit just all happy holding a $1500 thing that we all know they planted.  Hell that crappy white van of theirs was broken down out in the parking lot  and they had to call in a mobile mechanic to work on it
What did i get for my 5 hours their?    $20   and had to sign a waiver releasing my image     Ill be on sometime in April