By: Tiana Bodine
AuctionsTX.com
Following the success of popular auction programs, a pair of Reno reporters set out to discover what all the fuss was about. The journalists, working for the local Reno Gazette-Journal headed out to a local storage auction to do a light-hearted feature on whether or not storage auctions could translate to heavy profits. Their results were underwhelming. After being out-bid on several units by members of the 80-person crowd in attendance at the auction, they finally secured a unit for $300, only to find that the contents were worth less than $100.
They donated most of the items to charity and were happy to walk away from the auction with a story for their paper. After all, they were hardly expecting Storage Wars-esque levels of success from a single auction, and the results of their efforts seemed to agree with what they had known all along: Auctions aren't very good get-rich-quick schemes. They reported their findings, and that might have been the end of it if not for a few attention-getting items found in the unit.
While the reporters were sorting through items to sell or donate, they found a number of personal effects including photographs and the cremains of a man named Patrick. The journalists then worked to return the items to their rightful owner, reaching out through social media to contact her.
As it turns out, the storage unit's owner was a woman, Tonna McNally, who had undergone a fate familiar to anyone in the auction industry. Reeling for a divorce and eviction, she placed all of her valuables into storage while attempting to get back on her feet. When a family medical emergency left her unable to make her bills, the storage unit went into foreclosure.
McNally was overjoyed at being reunited with her family photos and the ashes of her former father-in-law, all of which she thought had been lost forever. This made for a heartwarming end to the Reno Gazette-Journal's piece, and teaches a deep lesson about the storage auction business: You're not just buying items, you're buying access to a person's past, and it's best to treat that access gently.