Went to an auction today; only 2 units up for sale, about 20 people there.  First unit: 10x10, looked real good, saw a king bed, sectional sofa, a large dresser, nice hope chest looking piece, lots of stereo furniture, and lots of boxes.  I'm feeling like it's a $600 locker (based on similar looking lockers sales in the area)  bidding quickly got to $500, I bid $600, then it slowed down and started getting 50 and 25 raises.  regulars dropped out after $800, and it was 2 ladies left, one I've seen at one other sale (where she also overpaid for a locker) and a new lady that I've not seen before.  the first lady won the unit for $1075.  (a side note about this lady...she brings her little dog to the auctions...not one small enough to hold in your hand, but not all that big..I don't know the breed, but it's ugly and barks a lot.  I find it very annoying, and wonder if she thinks she's Paris Hilton...yes, I have a major pet peeve against people that bring their little dogs with them *everywhere* in stores etc.  this is FL people, it's hot! leave the dog at home where it can be comfortable!)
anyway, we go on to the second unit, a 5x5x4 unit.  showing some made in china tools, some paint buckets, rollers, paint pans, a children's tv/vcr combo, and a cardboard box with a leather jacket on top of it.  looked like a $200-$250 locker tops.  nope, same idiot with the dog bids against a guy and buys it at $575. 
Oddest lookey loo moment:  a couple brought their kids who were throwing a football back and forth while the auction was conducted...it's a circus out there.

Wow...I always hear the vets say 'there's nothing in trash bags but trash' but I got down to a few trash bags that were in the $100 locker:  first few bags, yup trash.  then one of the last trash bags turned out to be full of vintage dresses and coats from the 60's!  There's a matching dress and coat that look oriental, and have a fancy tag sewn in them that say mandarin boutique with an address in hong kong, as well as some lilli ann stuff.  Was looking it up Ebay and seeing prices hitting around $75 on some of them.  Glad I was thourough with the trash bags!

good luck tomorrow. Hope you find that locker you're looking for.  I love those ones filled with plastic totes and neatly stacked boxes too! 

Been going through boxes from the 2 units today, and have had some nice surprises.  More video games, which I mention only cause collecting video game stuff is my hobby.  Also found a couple zippos with a neat leather holster that goes on your belt, a sony MP3 player..gotta find a charger now to see if it works, a JVC video camera; complete with a tape inside of home made porn (really people, don't put your home made porn in a storage locker! lol)  I found some antique weller pottery, a Kron TV lamp from the 60's (siamese cats with a green lightbulb that makes the cats eye's glow green) and I'm most excited about a small jewlery box that has some assorted silver jewlery, a ring with a large stone that I'm not sure what it is, but tiny stones around it that I'm hoping are diamonds, and two stud earrings that I'm also hoping are real diamonds (they're mismatched, one is bigger then the other)  anyway, can't wait to take them to find out if they're worth anything.
If aynone has any tips for selling single diamond earrings, I'd appreciate hearing them.  Do you just sell them at a gold and silver place?

Edit:  oooh! Had to come back and update with something I just found: 2 small carved elephants. I'm cautiously optimistic that they may be ivory.  They're slightly off white, I an see grain in it, there's some light brown streaks in it, there's light cross hatching on the bottom of the feet, and I tried the pin test (yeah, saw it on the tv show, and also found the same test on isitfake.com) and I could not push a red hot pin into it.  Now I just need to figure out where to go to confirm it and get an estimate.....

Went to an auctioneer's advertised sale yesterday with 4 units.  about 20 people, 2 that I recognized as serious buyers.  Won the first locker, a 10x5 for $100.  It had lots of boxes, the back looked neatly stacked, the front was falling over, with a few garbage bags near the front.  Clearing it out revealed that it was probably an elderly woman, the boxes had her collections of cat figurines, and teddy bears.  She had some teddy bears that came in boxes labeled collectors edition.  Going to hAve to look them up.  There was also a box that held 24 of those acrylic cubes for displaying beanie babies....each one with a beanie bear in it with tag protectors and the whole works.  I recognize them from when my wife collected these things as ones that were very desirable back then, but I imagine they've tanked like all the others. 
The other unit I won was a 10x15, I call it the single mom apartment unit. Got it for $210.  couch and loveseat, table with chairs, patio set, crib, twin bed, some other kid stuff, toys, etc.  We could see a lot of boxes marke fragile.  Turned out to be mostly kitchen stuff...glass bowls, etc.  There was also some real wood furniture, a dresser, a coffee table, and two end tables.
I think I'll be able to make a little money.  I see lots of good yard sale items, and I usually do well at my yard sales.  I'll spend this week getting it sorted out and ready and do a fri-sat sale next week.

Thanks Movieman, I thought it was my computer at first.

There are lots of auctions going on locally this week, two today, one tomorrow, and one friday.  I went to the first one this morning which was at a Uhaul location.  They had 2 units for auction, a 10x10, and a 5x5x4.  It was run by the employees of the location, which usually I like because there's usually smaller crowds and cheaper prices.  The crowd part was accurate. 6 bidders, 2 looky-loos (2 older ladies that were clearly influenced by the TV shows)  Anyway, as we're walking to the first unit (the 10x10) the woman running the auction announces that there is a minimum bid that they must get for this unit.  OK, never really heard them charging a minimum reserve bid before, but whatever.  She opens the door on the 10x10 and it's only about half full, neatly stacked cardboard boxes, some stuff on top that's open, looks like craft supplies, I see some fabric, and one side is piled with garbage bags that look like clothes/bedding.  Then she announces that the bidding must start at $700.   WHAT?! 
There were 2 other guys there besides myself that I consider auction regulars around here, and the three of us kind of looked at each other, then one guy asks 'where's the next unit?'  The 2 older ladies I mentioned earlier were like 'how do you know what's in there?'  needless to say, it was a 'no sale'  One kinda funny note, before she shut the door, the employee asked 'does anyone want to throw out any offer?'  I said 'yeah, 5 bucks' which she didn't seem to appreciate, and one of the 2 older ladies said to me 'but then you'd have to clean all that out of there?'  I just smiled and told her that's what I do.

So we go to the 5x5, again, minimum bid: $300.  The employee kept apologizing saying she was only doing what she was told to do, etc.  The 5x5 looked better, I could see a couple of computers, and I saw some newer Gi Joe toys which caught my interest.  One of the other regulars said he could offer $100, which I thought would have been fair for the room, but again it was turned down.  She did mention something about the bids being a percentage of what was owed, and what they wanted to recoup...but that just seems wrong, like get the stuff out at whatever cost and start renting it again to someone else.  At the end, they did tell us that they were looking into working with an auctioneer for future sales, so maybe they'll get it together later, but they didn't seem to know what they were doing at this one.
waste of time, hopefully the rest of the auctions this week will be better.

has anyone else run into this extreme minimum bid scenario? 

thanks for the welcomes!

Rollinradios:  The $5 locker turned out good, I made just over $400 selling the stuff from it.  It was at a PODS auction where there were only 6 bidders.  The front looked like trash, and the other bidders all walked away from it saying they weren't paying to haul away someone's trash.  There was broken wicker furniture, we could see a couple open boxes that had binders of paper, a few trash bags with broken stuff spilling out etc.  It was winding down, and the auctioneer was going to end it with no sale, and he said 'last chance, anyone even at $5' and I bid.  There was a guy with a big moving truck that bought all the other units, and I thought he might step over me and bid $10 once I bid the 5, but he didn't.  Anyway, the reason I went for it was I was looking towards the back, beyond the garbage.  I could see what I thought were 2 wooden hope chest type things (which it turns out they were, one was a Lane hope chest, but it had been damaged by the humidity and the inside drawer was broken) I could also see some plastic totes, and a couple items that were wrapped in moving blankets.  Since I have access to a dumpster, I was not worried about hauling all the trash in the front away, and I figured the $5 gamble to see that stuff in back was more then worth it.
Turns out the 2 chests I saw were hope chests like I thought, but they'd been in a POD stored in FL's humid conditions and were both in very bad shape.  I sold them to a lady that restores furniture for $30.  The 2 items that were wrapped in blankets turned out to be antique end tables, they had some wicker work on the lower shelf, and pull out extensions.  I sold those for $40 each at a yard sale.  Inside the hope chests were some electronics had sparked hope that there were other toys.  The pieces turned out to be from the Barbie Beach van, but were broken beyond salvage.  One other tote was completely filled with little mini fanny packs from the airline LTU, which looking them up on the internet I found had merged with Air Berlin.  They are red with the LTU logo in white, and have a blindfold for sleeping, a pair of socks, a shoe horn, and a little travel toothbrush.  I thought they were an unusual item to find, and put the tote out at the yard sale with a 10 cents price...sold 5 to a lady that collects airline stuff.  Still have a tote full.
anyway, I enjoyed the locker and was glad I gambled the $5.