I hear you when it comes to your concerns I had the same ones when the original SW aired. Everybody thought going to an auction you were instantly going to become rich. Rookies which I like to call them have no idea the time and work that goes in to buying storage rooms. No need to be star struck I am a normal dude just like you except I somehow ended up being on TV doing what I do anyway. As far as people living in the rooms in Manhattan not so much. When you head to the South Bronx well that's a different story. You see all kinds of things down there.

I still unload every room. There is no magic clean up crew that comes in. I might hire a few guys here and there to help me but I pretty much do all the grunt work. NYC is deff a different animal when it comes to auction buying. We rarely have an outside facility. Most are 8-9 floor buldings packed to the ceiling.

I'm telling you I bought 8 the other day when it was about 10 degrees out. Even tho our rooms are all inside its just as cold in there. I will think twice about buying that many in that cold again. I'm still frozen.

I was at an auction basically trying to buy everything I could from clothes to toys to fill my shop for the grand opening. The room I remember the most was the 7th one of the day that I won. $125 lots of trash bags and a few bins. As I started to go through the room I was finding nothing but trash and figured that's a $125 I won't be getting back until I pulled out a bag of old books. Books to me are a dime a dozen since I come across them so many times. This time I actually decided to take a look through a few. As I'm going through them I come across one that looks a little bit older than the rest. I open it up to see that it has been signed and inscribed. To my surprise the signature was F.Scott Fitzgerald. The book was the beautiful and the damned. That book turned out to be way more than the $125 I spent for the room. I ended up getting $4,000 for it. It was a first edition second press. If it would have been the first press with dust jacket it would have been worth around $75,000. Morale to the story from now on check all books for signatures before discarding.

Believe it or not they do take public transport. It is way cheaper than paying for parking in the city. Even in front of these storage places you can not park a non commercial vehicle to load or unload. I learned that lesson way to many times. The fines are no joke.

Mattresses are my worst enemy!!! I hate them but unfortunately I seem to run in to them all the time. Usually if they are half way decent I usually give them away to people who need them. The big old TV's I have a ton of fun with. Take a hammer and hit it dead center and watch out! Major explosion!!!! Always fun.....

Auction crowds have pretty much stayed the same. All the regulars that have seen me for years know what I'm about. Honestly not much has changed.