Storage Lockers!

It has been a while since I've said anything about storage lockers, today however we begin again. Ever since the advent of the storage auction shows it has been virtually impossible to buy them and make any money. Since I am intellectually gifted (I can count to eleven with visual assistance) I decided since I couldn't outbid them I would sell to them. So the adventure of auctioning storage units began. The problem with this is every other auctioneer in the country also wants to sell the storage lockers. Easy money? Yeah, pretty much. But recently the tide has begun to change.

The craze isn't over. But it has subsided significantly. A few short months ago I wrote about a storage auction that had over 200 people in attendance. Today, I went to a group of storage auctions that had no more than 12 people in attendance. The result...I may have actually made some money.

The first 5 lockers looked like trash that absolutely no one would want. One unit had a glass top table and nothing else. Another unit had a lawn mower, 4 bald mud tires and a life size personal vinyl blow up doll. The doll did spike interest in the unit and it garnered final bid of $10. The gentlemen who bought it was all smiles and stated that he was going to give it to a friend as a gag gift. Yeah, sure.

Finally, we arrived at unit number 6. The door drawn upward with a great deal of effort revealed a unit that was filled to the maximum. Boxes were literally falling out as the door went upward. Amazed I asked "How deep is the locker?", the answer was it measured 10' x 20'. It just had to be good!

I opened the bidding at $100. Someone bid $105. Not really feeling like going in $5 increments I next bid $200. The next bid $205. This went on for a while, finally, I ended up paying $525 for the locker. I literally had to force the contents back into the unit in order to close the door. I slipped my lock on and proceeded to the next unit.

Dog pee. A lot of it. That was the only thing that I knew about the next locker. It smelled so bad (helped along by the 95 degree temperature) that I could not bring myself to bid on it. The final winning offer, $1. I hope that the person who bought it has a high tolerance for the smell of urine.

The last location had 3 units available. The first looked intriguing. It had a mounted deer head, bedroom furniture and miscellaneous in boxes. I really wasn't too enthused about this one and it sold for a final bid of $110. The next unit wound up being mine. It just looked right. A safe on the floor, gun sights in plain view, tools and totes of who knows what. I opened it at $25, the five dollar bidders were out again and after 10 total bids I purchased it for $250.

Then the last locker. It WAS A DOUBLE! Huge units usually mean lots of great stuff! The doors opened to reveal a locker full of doors, old shelving, packing blankets and cabinet bases. I jokingly said that if anyone wanted to bid on the unit that I would give them $10 for the blankets. No one bid.

As we were returning to the office to make payment the unit was re offered to me for $1 and I could take what I wanted. Extremely low risk, I accepted. Under normal circumstances you are required to remove everything. Since all I had to do was take what I wanted (I offered $10 for the blankets) this one should turn out to be fantastic.

So, starting at 5:00 am tomorrow I will begin the adventure of cleaning out the 3 lockers that I purchased. For me a lot of work, hopefully with money to be made in the end. For you the chance to live vicariously and see what really happens on the adventures of a habitual junk buyer. Stay tuned. I'll take lots of photo's and try to describe the the good, the bad and the ugly.