It happens to all of us.  I bid on a unit last week that had a ton of dust, lots of boxes, and some furniture (I hate furniture).  Got the unit for $220.  Made a deal with one of the regulars who wanted the furniture at $50.  Come to find out most things were busted, and boxes had all cloths.  So for now I'm sitting at a $180 loss.  Have to see if can make anything back on the cloths but at $.50 and $1 each not going to make a profit on this one.

Don't count on rain to keep people away.  In most places everyone has the same idea and you end up with even bigger crowds then on nice sunny days.  It's those days when you have 2-3 auctions going on at the same place and time that you can get lucky with a small crowd if you pick correctly.

This coming week is auction week for my area it seems.  Small 3 unit auction tuesday, 7 facility caravan on thursday, 18 units on friday, and two different auctions on Saturday.  The friday and saturday auctions are places that only do auctions 2-4 times a year.  Taking off to hit thursday auction.  May be able to swing friday since working days and 2 nights this week.  Saturday is iffy due to my oldest niece b-day party.  Got to give my sister a call

I must be semi-lucky in my area.  Most I've seen on a non-saturday auction has been about 20 bidders, so about 30 people in all.  I've just yet to hear of anyone finding some of the type stuff ya'll do.

This week should be interesting.  Have a caravan thursday, a auction friday (doubt can make), and two auctions Saturday.  One of the Saturday auctions is a 3 facility caravan.  So trying to figure out which one I want to hit.  The lower side of town with 20 units, or the nicer side caravan with 50 something units.

Other then kids stuff (since I have 2 myself) I don't worry about it.  I purchased the land we live on at forclosure.  The guy had died and his kids just ransacked the place for valuables and such.  I found old army decorations and citations for valor (think WWII vet) mixed in the rubbish they left behind.  Made me a little sad but mostly angry that they didn't care.  So personal property in a storage auction doesn't bother me anymore.  I just box up pictures, letters, and such and return it to the storage facility with the date & unit #.  They mostly toss the stuff out after 6 months but do ask everyone to return the stuff so I do.

Word of caution - don't put the fliers "IN" the mailbox or you could get into some trouble.  Some postal code that if something is in a mailbox it must have postage paid, etc.  Not sure if the same applies for your area or not.  I just know avon, campaign fliers, etc. get taped to a mailbox or put in the paper box but not inside the mailboxes in my area.

Well I'm not in this full time but I may be able to explain.  People like Movieman, Rebecca, and others go to every auction there are.  So they see 100+ lockers a week depending on how big of an area they live in.  So they can find a "good" locker faster.  Also, most of them have a large amount of inventory from previous lockers they are still working to sale.  So even on a slow week you can make money if the sales are there.  Finally, most of them are established and have the expirence to know what they can make off a locker.  So they can gamble a little more then most noobies will.  I may look at a locker and think $150, where they see $200+ and have the time and means to sale.

I've yet to find a watch worth buying a battery for.  Most are cheap $5 - $10 Walmart stainless steel watches.  I do have a small collection of batteries I keep handy for testing just in case.  Of course I pulled them out of the watches I found in units.