My storage unit is going up for Auction and I want my stuff (sale, transfer)

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by steel7

Just have a friend bid on it & dont let the storage company know shes bidding for you. What they dont know wont hurt them. Storage companies charge too much as it is & many of them are crooks.

The problem is the $150.00 max. If the shed is worth anything, which she hasn't mentioned what is in the storage shed $150 isn't much.

Now, I have read the rest of the story; I feel sorry for the OP, but I disagree about the storage companies being crooks or charging too much.

She is also upset with the winning bidder, people bid at these auctions in hopes of finding hidden treasures, I am sure they do from time to time. Of course they are going to just toss what they do not want. She did ask them to give her a call, it sounds like they went through the stuff and just left what they didn't want. She claims it was crap, but I don't what she was expecting to be left behind. As sad as this is, she couldn't pay the storage bill and the storage company is in business to make money.

[Roaddog]

The igly truth of the thing is this, you don't just miss one rent payment and they sell your stuff, if a person knows they can't pay they have time to remove any items they want to keep before it gets that far along. It's a double don't, Don't miss your payment but if you can't afford it then don't leave the stuff you want to keep.
I've been to a few of these auctions and you can see who was thinking and who wasn't.

[SmoothBBQ]

Yuuuuuup

[Ultrarunner]

The flip side is people will fill a unit with trash because it is cheaper than proper disposal and then walk away...

Friends grandparents were resident managers of a very nice place in the Bay Area... they had an apartment on site.

The only thing a storage unit has to offer is storage... a unit that is delinquent still has overhead... the longer they let the delinquency go, the greater the loss.

Under the law here... the operator has a duty to minimize loss... they just can't let the bills pile up...

One alternative is to move to a less expensive space...

[katnip kid]

Best solution: don't aquire it to begin with, and when you are done with it, get rid of it! You have to figure, if the stuff is being stored, chances are it really may not be necessary to keep it. So, why store stuff you don't need and are not using, and may never use.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by katnip kid

Best solution: don't aquire it to begin with, and when you are done with it, get rid of it! You have to figure, if the stuff is being stored, chances are it really may not be necessary to keep it. So, why store stuff you don't need and are not using, and may never use.

On the other hand, and this is not intended to mitigate the OP's responsibility to the storage company, many people, especially now, store furniture, appliances and other household items when losing homes or between moves with every intention of recovering them when better situated. Sometimes "life" just gets the better of them and they can't keep up with the payments and/or have no permanent place for their belongings. Those are the people I can commiserate with.

[ringwise]

Originally Posted by alexxiz

The society is just too cruel and life too stressful in CA--because of high prices and bad economy--rents are up, inflation is happening and all prices are rising--yet, salaries aren't going up. You always hear stories like this one, and others... "my landlord had thrown me out and I have nowhere to sleep", "can't pay rent", "lost my job", "got 5 parking tickets don't' know how to pay them". It's a big contrast when you live in some other states and compare--the crazy stories just happen... much less. Little sense of community here, many people are just sailing the wild sea, by themselves, kind of...I'm sorry for your loss of property. Better let it go in your mind and forget it. Coldhearted crooks will get what's coming for them, eventually.

I'm sorry - who exactly is the crook? The storage facility owner, who rented a space to someone, at an agreed upon cost, with agreed upon limitation? One of which was that the facility owner could sell the contents of the unit if rent was more than a set amount past due.

Or was it the unit renter? The unit renter signed that agreement. The unit renter did NOT pay their rent. The unit renter that broke a contract, and now wants their stuff for free. Which is stealing, in my book.

So I ask you again - who is the crook? And before you start in with "oh, you're so heartless" - think for one minute about how you would feel if you were the facility owner. Or an employee that had to be laid off because so many crooks wanted to store their stuff without paying.

[ringwise]

Originally Posted by katnip kid

It's one thing to find "hidden treasure", another to be confronted by someone down on their luck who has lost their belongings due to some misfortune. It is not like the OP didn't want to pay, I don't sense a scam on OP's part. Ungrateful? Hmmmm.....how would the purchaser of OP's things every possibly know what would be of sentimental value to the OP? How insensitive. Tacky.

True, the OP could have gone there to get what was most valuable to him/her, but we don't know that person's life circumstances. There must have been a good reason why they couldn't take the stuff with them, they did have to store stuff, after all. I buy lots of second-hand stuff, if someone approached me for something back, it would be returned.

It's not like they didn't want to pay, yet THEY DIDN'T. Why is irrelevant. And deciding that they are down on their luck and wasn't a scam? How did you decide that. An equally likely scenario is that they spent the money on booze, drugs and tattoos. The stuff wasn't worth paying for until they remembered the sentimental items that they put in there.

Like a former boss of mine used to say to customers that wanted their screwed up orders - good enough to use, good enough to pay for.

[BudgetSelfStorage]

I run a very large storage facility. I am lucky that I typically have wonderful tenants. There are the occasional ones that don't pay. We are very upfront with them and tell them to call us if they can't make their payments on time. We do NOT want to see people lose their property and I'm more than happy to work with them if they call us. On the flip side of that coin, we are not a charity. We are a business. I can't tell you the number of excuses I have heard. Bottom line is it is a legal binding document. If your property is important enough to store, than the bill should be important enough to be paid. Saying you didn't get the messages or letters is not an excuse. We are adults and know when our bills are due. Please do not make the business owner the bad guy because you have not paid your bill, nor have you contacted them to make some type of arrangement. I assure you that most owners would rather work with you than go through the hassle of a sale. The money recouped from an auction very rarely covers the cost of rents and fees.

[bigdumbgod]

You could become a star!

Or burn money on a bunch of crap nobody wants.
Generally, if it has to be locked up in a random cubbyhole on the other side of town for $$$/month, it ain't worth keeping.