Storage Auction Blues

Well i attended my first storage auction this morning or at least part of one. when i got there i saw a hole crap load of trailers with stuff packed about 10 ft high on them and things outside the units. i went up and talked to the lady in the trailer where you get your number and all and asked her about everything. she said that they took everything out of every unit and either stacked them on the trailers or put them in from of the units. i asked aboutt he valuable things and she said that the owners and people that worked there and the people that helped unload the units get to pick what they want and so on. everything else is auctioned off. well i was walking around and  noticing that people bidders were just rummaging through boxes and sitting on the furniture that were to be auctioned off. well after walking around for a bit and seeing all this i got upset as there was nothing of value the furniture was old and junky there was nothing worth anything there cept some construction equipment that was to big for me to haul by myself. and to top this all off i tried calling the storage facility about 10 times this morning on my way there and could never get anyone to answer to find anything out before i got there so i wasted my time and my gas to go there when i could have gone to another place that was a climate controlled facility.
    has anyone else had experiences like this or is this just a place to stay away from? any advice or stories would be great.

That is definitely one to steer clear of in the future!

certainly stay away from there..  By the way are we able to call out who and where these not so great places are???  Maybe start a sub-section for shady storage facilities???

well this was in cass city michigan. i am going to another auction at 4pm today in  oxford michigan so i will let yall know how that one goes. i hope upon hope that its not as bad as the one this morning and lets just hope that there is not a hundred cars at this one also

not to thread jack, but I moved to GA from MI and abandoned a storage unit in Oxford.  I was living in Royal Oak at the time and my girlfriend lived in waterford.  It was the cheapest around.  Guess what happened to that unit......  Somebody bought a nice la-z-boy leather chair with automon, a new bike, some ball cards, and a few other misc things.  I guess I didn't need any of that stuff anyway.   Good luck there..

Yup, that is one I would stay away from.

certainly stay away from there..  By the way are we able to call out who and where these not so great places are???  Maybe start a sub-section for shady storage facilities???

This is a double edge sword, although yes it would be good for us to collaborate which facilities to stay away from by name. At least for the users on here that are in the same general area. However, these facilities can easily go back and sue you for slander. So I would be cautious around that.

Yup, that is one I would stay away from.

This is a double edge sword, although yes it would be good for us to collaborate which facilities to stay away from by name. At least for the users on here that are in the same general area. However, these facilities can easily go back and sue you for slander. So I would be cautious around that.

slander is a pretty vague term.  If we just put up a list of storage sites that "may be sketch" then they wouldn't have ground to stand on.  Certainly nothing to stand on if their practices truly were sketchy.

so i just got back from my second auction today they started out with 6 this morning and by auction time there was only one. this was a 5 x 10 unit. there was only about 10 boxes stacked with nothing but books and i mean thats it. they were mostly kids books some novels but nothing old or worth much value that i saw. since of the poor quality and nothing much of interest out of 5 of us bidders 4 of us bid lower than 15 dollars but one guy and his wife bid 100 for it. now this guy was also a new guy like the others of us cept an elderly couple thats been doing auctions for the past 10 years or so. he was all talk about storage wars and all. when the facility manager said the bids we all just looked at each other when he said 100. we thought he was joking but he wasnt. so i asked the guy what he saw that the rest of us didnt and he said he didnt see anything but he just figured that all the boxes werent books so i asked him if hed mind if i hung around and see if he was right. he said it was ok since i was new and still trying to figure out the whole thing. when we went back out and looked there was nothing but books. nothing worth of value he was kinda mad but said it was just a hunch that backfired. so i tahnked him for the little learning lesson about it and left. kinda funny how things work out sometimes but i guess thats the name of the game in the lkr business.

did you ask what magically happened to the other 5 units that were up for bid?  Interesting that in a matter of hours 5 people paid their rent...

i am guess that they ALL got paid. i know that the unit i really wanted which had antique furniture and a lot of other misc items which was a 10x20 they guy came when i was signing in and paid for it. that was about 15 mins before start of auction. i wanted to strangle the guy for doing that but what can you do.