Tell us about your first time

How did you get hooked on storage auctions? How did you learn about them and what made you go to your first auction?

2006 Several people at my flea market were doing them and my new products were selling worse and worse . When the place i was storing my things at had their auction i went and bought my first room .  it turned out it belonged to someone i went to high school with and i truly had a blast rummaging through her crap and i was hooked

I had a friend (God rest his soul) who was a retired criminal defense attorney...he kind of reminded me of the Godfather.

Anyway, he was a hoarder and needed help cleaning out his garage, storage shed, attic and two storage units. We spent a couple weeks sorting through all his crap and then had a giant garage sale and split the profits.

While I was sorting through the stuff in his storage units, the property manager came by on the golf cart and we started up conversation. To make a long story short, she told me about an upcoming auction and I decided to go.

When I got to the facility, it was just me and this other lady. (At the time I didn't realize that 2 people at a storage auction was extremely uncommon.) Anyway, the property manager raises the door to the first unit which contained a really nice microfiber sofa and loveseat and several other pieces of furniture and decorations. The property manager started the bidding at $25, I said yes and the other lady said no.

Went to the next unit which contained a 140 piece socket set, several fishing rods & gear and a 10 person tent.
As soon as the door was raised the other lady walked off. The manager asked if I wanted it for $35, since she had a sealed bid at $25. I was actually in need of a new socket set so I said to her "I wish I knew whether those sockets were in the case." She said "go inside and open the case." So I did, the sockets were there and I bought the unit.

I left that auction thinking "this storage auction thing sure is easy...I need to go to more auctions!" 

I was 16 or 17.
Friends father was a contractor and used storage facility as warehouse.  He did auctions cause he pretty much knew what was in the lookers from being there so much.   He'd pay us to clean them out....eventually started bidding myself.

Lot easier back then.   Free use of moving van from business.  Free dumpsters from job sites.  Recyclers came to business.  Old barn on property to store.......

In hind sight we threw away a lot of sellable items.  We mainly looked for construction and automotive stuff since that's the people we knew.   And sure we got scammed.  We didnt know what stuff was worth. No Internet back then.    If we made $200 we thought we were rolling in the money!  lol

Ahh...the good ol' days. If there were only a way to get attendance levels back to normal. Wait, I've got it!........ Sniper rifles!