we just got a facebook page though (FINALLY) so we'll try to run everything through there from now on.  http://www.facebook.com/storageheroes

Still enjoying reading posts here though, too!
As far as traveling to auctions, I'm not opposed, but I've never had to go more than 15-20 miles away.  I know that isn't normal.  How far do you guys travel on a daily basis?

All facilities are required by law to sell the items repossessed from a back-rent locker at a "public sale" -  this is not always an auction but it is 99.9 percent of the time.   

Most of the larger facilities / chains (Public Storage, Safeguard, The Storage Center, etc etc etc) have them once a month.   If they are having auctions more than once a month, something VERY fishy is going on --  the # of days they have to allow a tenant to pay along with the # of days they have to advertise the auction usually ends up being between 20-30 days.  Some of the smaller locations will wait to have an auction until they have enough units to make it worth their while.  It's not uncommon to see places that only have 2 or 3 auctions a year.

Hope that helped!

Rebecca
http://storageheroes.blogspot.com

Sounds like you have everything.  Band-aids are a good one to keep on standby.  Also- two things I'm never without on digs (assuming you are planning to dig right after if you do in fact win a unit by the fact that you brought garbage bags) --  hand-sanitizer (VERY important) and a razor blade or knife for cutting open boxes.  Also some great gloves. We keep 2-3 different thicknesses of gloves on hand because you never know what you're going to need -- thick ones for moving/lifting furniture,  thin ones for digging through pants pockets.

This is just a silly thing, but I always bring some type of snack (usually bottled water and nuts or craisins)  and a book or notebook to do work because there is a lot of hurry-up and wait at auctions and sometimes a lot of down time, and it's not like you can just leave right in the middle.  It's good to have some fuel.

Congrats on taking the leap-- best of luck to you!  Also, if you want to read my "newbie code of conduct" you can do so here: http://storageheroes.blogspot.com/2011/09/newbie-or-not-newbie-that-is-question.html

Best,
Rebecca
http://storageheroes.blogspot.com

Thanks for sharing!      Those crowds are INSANE-- we're lucky in New Orleans not to be that bad, yet... 25-30 is the most people I've ever seen. 

But, despite all that, those units still went for exceptionally fair prices.  I'm super surprised.  Usually when there's a big crowd my partner and I do a lot of scare tactics (jumping the bid, etc) -- just to make a point and stop people from bidding against us.   It also helps if people are new and the units look trashy--  they sometimes don't want to put in the work dusting and hauling.

It's odd to see bids that are odd numbers (like I think you had one for $47)... usually the bid increments are 1, 5, 10,  and either 5's or 25's.

Let us know how the next one goes!

http://storageheroes.blogspot.com

Not only have I seen seemingly unreasonable opening bids, but the other day, we had this ridiculous situation with a small "Mom & Pop" storage facility, where the facility owner was acting as his own auctioneer.  There was a crowd of about 50 (25 more than usual around here),  and 10 units for auction.     He opened a 10 X 10, did not announce a minimum bid or reserve amount,  started with a bid of $200 (which I thought he had gotten from someone), which was WAY too much.  Unit should not have gone for over $150.   The newbies bid against each other all the way until $450, which I thought was insane, but they were all excited and it was the first unit of the day.  The owner/auctioneer then announces "Okay, the min bid is $500 on this unit -- I'm not letting it go for under that amount"  -- and we're all like, what?    He then starts explaining that the law lets him recoup his fees and this particular tenant was past-due 4 months at $750... we tell him that's not OUR fault.

I almost began to tell him that if he wanted to quote the law, he should know that if he needs to set a minimum amount he needs to announce it BEFORE the bidding starts, and not wait to see how much he can get for it before he starts mandating higher prices, but I didn't.   I got it all on video, too.  Debating whether or not I should report him or just let him be.   

It's bad enough prices have gotten sky-high recently-- but now, in the words of Fred Sanford, we have "big dummies" to deal with!

Thanks, y'all!   I try not to get too into mechanics of writing and just focus more on telling a story (like I would in chat or e-mail) about the things we find.  I'm glad you're enjoying it!  I will definitely take a guest blog or too at some point, so I will definitely hit you up for that... that would be amazing!

As far as the letters, we are writing a book called "Letters from Storage Lockers" that should be published pretty soon!   It's a compilation of a lot of the letters we find.  We try to return personals & letters when we can, but the facilities sometimes just tell us to throw them away and that's when we save them for the book.    I will definitely be posting back here when it is published!

Thanks so much for the feedback... please keep it coming!

Check out my blog... I've been doing auctions for awhile but am pretty new to the blogging thing!  Would love you guys opinions and feedback!    It's http://storageheroes.blogspot.com 

xoxo,
Rebecca