Madam X

I am about to tell you about one of my favorite units; this chic was fly like none other. She had top shelf tastes in all areas of her life. From clothing to the Porsche 911 (no the Porsche was not in the unit, just a set of keys and registration-DAMN!) This unit is in the top twenty units I ever bought. To make the list we need to do over twenty thousand and this one was forty eight thousand, once it was all said and sold. This unit was about three years ago.

Madam X was thirty one, five foot four and one hundred and twenty five pounds with a large shock of red hair and green eyes. Honey was fine! To be so small she had some very nice hind parts! Shoot she was nice all over!

We figured something bad happen to her, because based on the contents of the units she was paid, way paid. Later on we found out just how paid and how she made her loot! She was a madam/ escort, she had a sable of very hot young girls, so I know she was raking it in.

She was simply a beautiful girl to behold. Think Brazilian body type small on up top and a big booty. Yes, I am an ass man! She left several of the things in the unit that are on my do not leave in the unit list! There was a driver’s license, social security card and much much more very sensitive information all in the unit. With tons of pictures, she was definitely a camera whore and more than a little stuck on her self.

I knew when the door went up, it was all about the finer things of life, she had a Baker dining room chair right up front. I knew what it was and opened the bid up at one hundred dollars. If you know Baker furniture, you know it is rare to find that type of furniture use outside a high end consignment shop and even rarer to fine in a storage unit auction. The unit was a ten by twenty and packed. Her whole sordid life was in there.

This could be looked upon as a cautionary tale about prostitution which is called the victimless crime, I vigorously disagree. I think you can do it for a little while and not be affected but if you get in that game for years it has got to change your whole outlook on life for the worse.

This is the only escort/madam unit I know of that I bought. Perhaps more, I suspected some people of that life style by the items found in the unit but no one kept records like she did. Not only did she run it, she had ten regulars that paid handsomely for her company. They were all into fetish which is a premium on top of the regular price. In a red little book, note black ha ha she kept their names, marriage status, job, phone numbers, occupation and income! I tell you if I was a dirty dude…..I recognized some of those names! The ATL is a small town!

Call me cheap I am not paying a grand for a shot of ass! Then again I am not completely unfortunately looking which I gathered some of these big spenders were cursed in that regard. Nor do I need to be slap to get aroused. I am not going to say different strokes for different folks, there is something strange about you needing to get your ass beat to get off. Yes , she keep copious notes of all her sessions with these dudes, just a warning fellas you may get more than a back arch when you engage these women, I know if the guys knew how much intel she had on them they more than likely would flip out. I guess you call the balance of power.

The unit was arranged in a manner that you could not get a good look at anything, tons of boxes stacked to the ceiling. But experience gave me a good edge and I guess right everything I thought was in there was as expected.

We were at five hundred dollars on the bidding when the field narrowed down to this new guy and me. He really wanted it, I think he knew something, because the tried to scare me off by raising his bid to nine hundred and fifty dollars from five hundred, he started walking to the door to close it and I said a one thousand. The he got back in the game, he hit it at eighteen hundred, then proceeded to lower the door. I hit it at nineteen hundred. He had this look of incredible pain on his face; you know that look the nerd gets when the pretty girl goes off with the jock and she always goes off with the jock in the movies, in real life nerds are running shit!

Back to the unit…

I do not know who this fool thought he was messing with! When you are new feel out the landscape, I had five thousand on me and a credit card for backup, so he was not getting that unit! That is one thing about this business you can not judge these people by their appearance. There is money in this business big money. Sure that day I looked like a bum, I did not shave and I think I was flossing the wrinkle look.

I had a feeling I need to move this one, as soon as possible. I had my guys stay late and we came back around seven. We started stacking it high and tight. We always do they stuff looks deceiving in the units. This one was packed from the root to the toota, I am glad I came back in the van, we filled up the E250 cargo van and a 26 foot box truck with no room to spare!

We came out great for a G! She had three bedroom sets in there, dining room set with a matching, china cabinet, dinette, Maytag washer and dryer, three big screens, about a thousand dvds, even more cds. A wardrobe to die for, silver flatware, you name it she had it. She had some awesome high end watches, (Omega, Concord, IWC, Cartier) really nice watches that did quite well on eBay the watches paid for the unit, labor, diesel and threw off a large profit. Yes this was a Jackpot Unit.

Now to the good stuff! She laundered her money through a car dealership and dry cleaners, Madam X was on point with her businesses, hoing is a highly lucrative business she and her staff did four million a year, yes that is whole lot of hoing! Some was coming from the businesses…but damn! She kept journals, no I do not have them, and we destroyed a lot of stuff because you never know who may be looking for it. In case the law comes around I can truly say I forgot.

Madam X also had a little problem; she was in love with that nose candy, even found some in the strangest of places. You think you are opening lipstick it is cocaine, eye glass cases, cocaine compact cocaine you get the idea she was an addict, I know her dope man loved her! I also believe this was her downfall, in the unit were architecture plans for this dream house I assume, she was going to build or in the process of building, there were letter emails from the designers and builders, so she was definitely making plans for the future.

The folks at the storage facility said she was on a trip around the world and her credit card started rejected the charges. They said they only saw her once when she moved in and that was it. There really is no telling what happened to her.

But the unit talked; from the records some of her girls banded together and formed their own thing, there were notes from therapy sessions, yes Madam X was on the couch every Thursday discussing her unhappy inner child.

From the outside it looked like she had it all beauty, wealth and tons of trappings even with all of this she was not happy (she kept a journal) some dudes got issues, one of regulars paid her crazy money for her to humiliate him she wrote in her journal he disgusted her the most but she could get a gang of shoes after his sessions of ball stomping. Every dude reading this will wince and his balls will tense up, balls get hurt at the mere though of pain, let alone some chic stabbing her four inch heels in the boys!

It is units like this that get you hooked on this business, and it is not the money that does it okay…I am lying the money is a strong motivator, but being able to comb through the lives of these people on such a personal level was like and addiction to me, you never know what you are going to find.

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Some units and people are more memorable than others this is the saga of one such person Mr Bigg Stuff. In the A we have a plethora of entrepreneurs.  Everyone has a hustle, a side gig , catering, whatever and many have their own empires in this town. If you want to build or network your business, Atlanta is the city. It is very business friendly.

Unfortunately when a business goes bust there is nothing left but ash and dust from the remains of the once shiny now tarnished image of a dead enterprise…and a lot of shit in a storage unit or two or three. I have seen one person have as many as ten units! (no this did not go up for auction)

It was one of those not so cold winter mornings in Atlanta, it was a stacked day. There were auctions everywhere! I had made a decision Friday where I would attend my first auction. However things change. I needed stuff and the earlier I started the better my day would be.

I got Mr. Big Stuff’s three units in Dunwoody, I did not know all of these units were owned by the same person at the time of purchase.  More often than not I would know before going to the auction how many units a person has on the auction block. As you can tell by this story that is not always the case, not even close.

This happens a lot (delinquent tenants have more than one unit) and if you do not buy all of the units of that person you can be screwed! Some folks do not want to share with you; they rather see you lose out than help you.   If they know you need part two be prepared to pay out the ass for it! Yes, it is that type of business.

The weekend before was killer, we sold six sets of washers and dryers and all of the bedroom sets , dining room sets, coffee table set we had on the floor. We needed inventory like a crack head needed a hit. Sales were good and it was hard to keep up with the demand, many people crave good used stuff, just can’t get enough of it.

I had a lot of holes to fill, I came out to buy. In cases like this feathers get ruffled folks call you greedy, if they had the money they would do it to you. I bought six units straight and was keyed in on everything. If it was good I bought it.

Regular customers lose interest quickly when all you have is crap on the floor, there were a lot of auctions that week, but I wanted to give myself that secure feeling of knowing I was ready for the weekend, it takes the pressure off.

Storage auctions can be a rush in all aspects, from the buying, to the selling.  I can’t  count all the heart thumping moments I had at auction!

After the auction I called my guys and we started loading, once I got them started I could catch a juicy auction at 12, the beauty of being an early riser paid off this day.

I started to notice what was in unit A matched what was in unit C and as we loaded the items room by room it hit me, all of this stuff was one person! Oddly enough all of the units were in different names. I have seen it a hundred times.

People who need more than one unit and are running low on funds do this to take advantage of the dollar specials many storage facilities have frequently to drum up business. He head two 10 x 20s and one 10 x 10 filled from the roota to the toota.

His stuff was fly!

The fist unit had a custom made black leather sofa set with matching ottoman, adorned in a chrome nail head trim, hot , hot, hot! He also had oval partner’s desks; these two items got me what I paid for all three units. In the back was a brand new crystal chandelier in the box, a lady from Cumming bought it within fours hours of me putting it on Craigslist.

He believed in going big on everything, the house, the cars ( he had a Mercedes S 600 and a BMW 745 which is a little strange folks are usually loyal to one brand and with both cars close to are over a $100,000 you are blessed if you can afford one save two.  He was a little egotistical, he had pictures of himself posing buy all of his toys ( looked cheesy)

I wished Mr. Big Stuff was a bigger man in stature, his clothing was tight, the Polo and other well known brands did quite well on eBay, his suits were a bust,( they were all bespoke) custom clothing is a bitch to sell, there are no sizes and you have to measure every aspect of the piece, very time consuming. Often not worth it, this guy was 5’5 and chubby as hell( okay morbidly obese), not good for the resale tip. You could use his drawers for curtain of a bay window! ( Why do you think I called him Mr. Big Stuff)

The dining room set was to die for! I have never gotten another set with seating for twelve, and the china cabinet. (yes it was a long ass table) I swear the way that they had that stuff stacked in there you had no clue to the goodies we found.

There was every type of electronic toy or whatchamacall it in the units, Play stations, 3 big screen TVs ( this was before flat screen became the rage, knowing him he would have them ) tons of accent items, pictures, a really groovy bar, chaise lounges and four bedroom sets, can you say score! All of this cost me $1895.00 definitely a steal.

Notice I said his stuff the wife left him and moved back to her home state. As she stated in an email she had enough of Atlanta and him! He was from what I could tell very controlling (his emails to her) , there was a lot of correspondence in the unit personal  and business, to be simple he was an ass thru and thru, I know why too, more on that later.

Mr. Big Stuff was the former owner of a restaurant that I heard of but never got the chance to sample before it closed. The reviews were great; the food was great why did it close?

Mr. Bigg Stuff was pimping the hell out of the business. It is a case of greed gone wild. He used payroll money to pay his bills and credit card to make payroll-BAD VERY BAD- didn’t know you could pay a payroll company with your AMEX did you! He had the whole AMEX family green to black just the cards they had closed all of his accounts.

He was making a great income about $165,000 -$212,000  a year ( his take) yes there were tax returns in the units, now this income does afford a great lifestyle, not a grand one. Ole buddy had three car payments each over $1200.00 per month. Not the proper allocation of funds, that much money on time on a depreciating asset? ( WHEW!!) If they were in the business name I could understand, that is a huge write off, alas they were not.

A second mortgage on his house that note with the regular mortgage was $8524.00 per month! If you have a home you know there is lot more to owning the house than just paying the mortgage.

Mr Big Stuff  had huge credit card bills totally over $16,500.00 per month from the statements, ( a clear sign of comingling of the funds) multiple cell phone accounts and oh yeah the mistress.  She had the what I term the chick Benz that C 230 black with the Sport Pkg ( the maroni sticker was in the unit)

She also had a house that he was paying the note on, baby girl was FINE, I would have taken her out to dinner but a house and a Benz, we would have been married!  Yes it is  trickin if you got it! In the end he didn’t have it. Ladies this is how you get a house and Benz from a dude.

Find a guy with a huge ego has great cash flow and is impotent, you see this is the only way he can fuck you. By caking you up like that. If he had real skills he would not have to do all that…..just sayin.

I do not know what happen with her, but damn son not a good look….but she was cute! She probably had a maintenance man on stand by. Mr Bigg was somewhat soft in this department.

This is why he was so angry, can you imagine being him, having it going on (well at one point he did) and nothing in the boxers, seriously that messes with a man’s ego like nothing you ever heard of (back in the day I worked in a Urology office, learned a lot about the what can happen to a man with E.D)

Your business closed, your wife gone, your money gone, your ho gone, the IRS is after you and now some dude named G has all of your shit. (He got in contact with me thru the storage facility) definitely a bummer! I took all of records and stuff back to the office. He wanted to buy some stuff back, as a rule I don’t meet these people are talk to them ( too creepy)

We sold the hell out of his stuff in a week and the next Monday I had the same problem, had some big holes on the floor. What a lovely problem to have. Life as a storage addict can be good believe that!

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Doesn’t look like much right this is where I got my first jackpot finds out of this was behind one of my old houses. Just came across the picture the other day. Damn I wish I had saved more pictures! It took me three hours to break into this baby. Fortunatley for me it was a fire safe ( they have cement or ceremic in the walls) the cement enabled me to work my way in. Good thing I was not a stranger to hard work!

Safe 0 Glendon $62,000.00

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Madam X

I am about to tell you about one of my favorite units; this chic was fly like none other. She had top shelf tastes in all areas of her life. From clothing to the Porsche 911 (no the Porsche was not in the unit, just a set of keys and registration-DAMN!) This unit is in the top twenty units I ever bought. To make the list we need to do over twenty thousand and this one was forty eight thousand, once it was all said and sold. This unit was about three years ago.

Madam X was thirty one, five foot four and one hundred and twenty five pounds with a large shock of red hair and green eyes. Honey was fine! To be so small she had some very nice hind parts! Shoot she was nice all over!

We figured something bad happen to her, because based on the contents of the units she was paid, way paid. Later on we found out just how paid and how she made her loot! She was a madam/ escort, she had a sable of very hot young girls, so I know she was raking it in.

She was simply a beautiful girl to behold. Think Brazilian body type small on up top and a big booty. Yes, I am an ass man! She left several of the things in the unit that are on my do not leave in the unit list! There was a driver’s license, social security card and much much more very sensitive information all in the unit. With tons of pictures, she was definitely a camera whore and more than a little stuck on her self.

I knew when the door went up, it was all about the finer things of life, she had a Baker dining room chair right up front. I knew what it was and opened the bid up at one hundred dollars. If you know Baker furniture, you know it is rare to find that type of furniture use outside a high end consignment shop and even rarer to fine in a storage unit auction. The unit was a ten by twenty and packed. Her whole sordid life was in there.

This could be looked upon as a cautionary tale about prostitution which is called the victimless crime, I vigorously disagree. I think you can do it for a little while and not be affected but if you get in that game for years it has got to change your whole outlook on life for the worse.

This is the only escort/madam unit I know of that I bought. Perhaps more, I suspected some people of that life style by the items found in the unit but no one kept records like she did. Not only did she run it, she had ten regulars that paid handsomely for her company. They were all into fetish which is a premium on top of the regular price. In a red little book, note black ha ha she kept their names, marriage status, job, phone numbers, occupation and income! I tell you if I was a dirty dude…..I recognized some of those names! The ATL is a small town!

Call me cheap I am not paying a grand for a shot of ass! Then again I am not completely unfortunately looking which I gathered some of these big spenders were cursed in that regard. Nor do I need to be slap to get aroused. I am not going to say different strokes for different folks, there is something strange about you needing to get your ass beat to get off. Yes , she keep copious notes of all her sessions with these dudes, just a warning fellas you may get more than a back arch when you engage these women, I know if the guys knew how much intel she had on them they more than likely would flip out. I guess you call the balance of power.

The unit was arranged in a manner that you could not get a good look at anything, tons of boxes stacked to the ceiling. But experience gave me a good edge and I guess right everything I thought was in there was as expected.

We were at five hundred dollars on the bidding when the field narrowed down to this new guy and me. He really wanted it, I think he knew something, because the tried to scare me off by raising his bid to nine hundred and fifty dollars from five hundred, he started walking to the door to close it and I said a one thousand. The he got back in the game, he hit it at eighteen hundred, then proceeded to lower the door. I hit it at nineteen hundred. He had this look of incredible pain on his face; you know that look the nerd gets when the pretty girl goes off with the jock and she always goes off with the jock in the movies, in real life nerds are running shit!

Back to the unit…

I do not know who this fool thought he was messing with! When you are new feel out the landscape, I had five thousand on me and a credit card for backup, so he was not getting that unit! That is one thing about this business you can not judge these people by their appearance. There is money in this business big money. Sure that day I looked like a bum, I did not shave and I think I was flossing the wrinkle look.

I had a feeling I need to move this one, as soon as possible. I had my guys stay late and we came back around seven. We started stacking it high and tight. We always do they stuff looks deceiving in the units. This one was packed from the root to the toota, I am glad I came back in the van, we filled up the E250 cargo van and a 26 foot box truck with no room to spare!

We came out great for a G! She had three bedroom sets in there, dining room set with a matching, china cabinet, dinette, Maytag washer and dryer, three big screens, about a thousand dvds, even more cds. A wardrobe to die for, silver flatware, you name it she had it. She had some awesome high end watches, (Omega, Concord, IWC, Cartier) really nice watches that did quite well on eBay the watches paid for the unit, labor, diesel and threw off a large profit. Yes this was a Jackpot Unit.

Now to the good stuff! She laundered her money through a car dealership and dry cleaners, Madam X was on point with her businesses, hoing is a highly lucrative business she and her staff did four million a year, yes that is whole lot of hoing! Some was coming from the businesses…but damn! She kept journals, no I do not have them, and we destroyed a lot of stuff because you never know who may be looking for it. In case the law comes around I can truly say I forgot.

Madam X also had a little problem; she was in love with that nose candy, even found some in the strangest of places. You think you are opening lipstick it is cocaine, eye glass cases, cocaine compact cocaine you get the idea she was an addict, I know her dope man loved her! I also believe this was her downfall, in the unit were architecture plans for this dream house I assume, she was going to build or in the process of building, there were letter emails from the designers and builders, so she was definitely making plans for the future.

The folks at the storage facility said she was on a trip around the world and her credit card started rejected the charges. They said they only saw her once when she moved in and that was it. There really is no telling what happened to her.

But the unit talked; from the records some of her girls banded together and formed their own thing, there were notes from therapy sessions, yes Madam X was on the couch every Thursday discussing her unhappy inner child.

From the outside it looked like she had it all beauty, wealth and tons of trappings even with all of this she was not happy (she kept a journal) some dudes got issues, one of regulars paid her crazy money for her to humiliate him she wrote in her journal he disgusted her the most but she could get a gang of shoes after his sessions of ball stomping. Every dude reading this will wince and his balls will tense up, balls get hurt at the mere though of pain, let alone some chic stabbing her four inch heels in the boys!

It is units like this that get you hooked on this business, and it is not the money that does it okay…I am lying the money is a strong motivator, but being able to comb through the lives of these people on such a personal level was like and addiction to me, you never know what you are going to find.

Glendon Cameron

09/25/09

I was thinking today, how I got in this business. Was it chance or just my time to do something different and intriguing? You never know what fate has in store for you. I have been a long time ebayer since 2001 and in the beginning my partner and I only sold new items. Over time we got over stocked with non selling items.

During one business meeting I thought we should have a garage sale to get rid of the excess inventory that was taking up valuable space and our money was locked into the inventory until it sold. Over the next few weeks, we set up for the sale at my partner’s house; I even ordered a book online about garage sales.

The weekend of the sale came and went; we were eighteen hundred dollars richer for our efforts, far exceeding our expectations of three to four hundred dollars. Thus, I became hooked and began looking for items to buy and resale.

I had always known about storage unit auctions, just did not know the nuts and bolts of the business. Did a little research and found a few sales.

Let’s say I was unprepared for the type of people you see at the auctions. Did you ever watch the movie Deliverance? Take the characters from the movie and make some older and a few younger and that was the crowd at my first auction. I cannot say what you will see around the rest of the US, but here in Georgia that was the norm.

Things were not looking well for me, if this is the kind of people who come to auctions, the stuff can’t be that good. So I was a little shy about buying anything, this went on for a few weeks. Then I just started buying units. Nothing courage, no reward, was my new found thought process.

The first unit I bought was quite good, it cost me fifty dollars, I got several new Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and six pair of brand new Nikes out of it for myself and sold the rest for a nice profit of two hundred and fifty dollars. The second storage unit I bought was a heap of junk that I paid one hundred and eighty five dollars for it and another twenty five to through it away.

Later on I found these prices were high, being new is like being initiated into a fraternity, there is a hazing period that can cost you a lot of money. The regulars were trying to run me off! This went on for months, no one really talks to you and the people are quite insular and paranoid. Three months later I found out why.

On a beautiful sunny yet mild day I was in Conyers at a little hole in the wall storage facility, the place was old, but clean. It was a sealed bid auction or silent auction. On these types of auctions, you write your bid down and turn it in to the auctioneer or district manager.

Whoever writes down the highest bid wins, there were a few decent ones to bid on, I bid on four and I was way off, sometimes by half!

Then we can to a unit that had a safe in it, really old rickety roll top desk, which fell apart after I moved it, a set on antique metal bed rails, a few boxes and not much else. I wrote down a bid for a dollar. I figured it was a lark and I would be out bid again.

The manager called my name and everyone started laughing, “you just paid a dollar to haul off their junk” one of the deliverance people declared with a more than a hint of glee in his voice. It was not that much stuff and shoot it was only a dollar.

We went to a few more units and I was once again out bid, there is a certain art to bidding in the sealed bid format, it took me a moment to master it, this was not the moment as my lack of success painfully highlighted.

After settling up, I went to my newest purchase and said what the hell, let’s do this. I got all of the stuff loaded rather quickly, except for the safe. I did not know something that small could weigh that much. I had to go to the rental office and borrow an appliance dolly to move it to the van.

I found a sheet of ply wood to create a ramp and I got it in the van, I took it to our office and promptly begin trying to break into it. I never broke into a safe before. In the beginning it was fun, you know men like tearing stuff up!

I used a sledge hammer, tried to drill it, broke off the dial and tried to move the tumblers, I was successful in knocking out the hinges, and however the safe would not open. All of the locking bolts where still in place. Three hours after I started the safe was still locked and little more worn than when I started.

My next bright idea was to wedge it open with some rail road spikes I got out of a storage unit, as time goes on you will be amazed at how much stuff that you need that will come out of a unit. I started to gain some traction and I saw a small open near the spike. I promptly inserted another spike, and another unit I exposed a bolt and pried it out, about an hour later I finally got the safe open. There was a layer of concrete between the inner and outer steel walls of the safe.

While I was doing this my business partner was laughing her ass off, every now then she would come to the back and check on my progress. During one these trips to laugh at me, I was pulling stuff out, when I showed her the vintage diamond necklace she almost fell out. A beautiful piece with one 3 carat diamond pendant with smaller diamonds and rubies in an 18k white gold setting it weighed quite a bit!

Several gold and diamond rings, a old Rolex stainless steel watch , a gold Omega watch, a roll or Morgan Silver Dollars , Walking Liberty Dollars, silver coins, a ton of Kennedy half dollars, gold coins, a Ruger Pistol, Colt 45 Revolver, 9MM Berretta, Pearl handle derringer I thought this was cool as hell! Silver Certificates, old leases this guy was a developer.

But it was the jewelry that made this by special, once I found the right channels to sell it, it took some research, the pawn shop guy was like I will give you ten thousand dollars right here and now for all of it, guns included. I thought for a moment, I was tempted, ten grand in cash is mighty enticing. If a pawn shop is willing to give me ten it got to be worth thirty to forty thousand.

I held out and took my time to sell it. Total take on a dollar invested , seven hours of hard labor was $62,000 the jewelry accounted for $49,000, the coins came up to $8000 and the guns and other items ( pens, collectibles, silver) made up the difference. So this is why the regulars will try to run you off, if you do it long enough and buy enough units you will hit a good lick!

Glendon Cameron 08/9/09

Madam X

I am about to tell you about one of my favorite units; this chic was fly like none other. She had top shelf tastes in all areas of her life. From clothing to the Porsche 911 (no the Porsche was not in the unit, just a set of keys and registration-DAMN!) This unit is in the top twenty units I ever bought. To make the list we need to do over twenty thousand and this one was forty eight thousand, once it was all said and sold. This unit was about three years ago.

Madam X was thirty one, five foot four and one hundred and twenty five pounds with a large shock of red hair and green eyes. Honey was fine! To be so small she had some very nice hind parts! Shoot she was nice all over!

We figured something bad happen to her, because based on the contents of the units she was paid, way paid. Later on we found out just how paid and how she made her loot! She was a madam/ escort, she had a sable of very hot young girls, so I know she was raking it in.

She was simply a beautiful girl to behold. Think Brazilian body type small on up top and a big booty. Yes, I am an ass man! She left several of the things in the unit that are on my do not leave in the unit list! There was a driver’s license, social security card and much much more very sensitive information all in the unit. With tons of pictures, she was definitely a camera whore and more than a little stuck on her self.

I knew when the door went up, it was all about the finer things of life, she had a Baker dining room chair right up front. I knew what it was and opened the bid up at one hundred dollars. If you know Baker furniture, you know it is rare to find that type of furniture use outside a high end consignment shop and even rarer to fine in a storage unit auction. The unit was a ten by twenty and packed. Her whole sordid life was in there.

This could be looked upon as a cautionary tale about prostitution which is called the victimless crime, I vigorously disagree. I think you can do it for a little while and not be affected but if you get in that game for years it has got to change your whole outlook on life for the worse.

This is the only escort/madam unit I know of that I bought. Perhaps more, I suspected some people of that life style by the items found in the unit but no one kept records like she did. Not only did she run it, she had ten regulars that paid handsomely for her company. They were all into fetish which is a premium on top of the regular price. In a red little book, note black ha ha she kept their names, marriage status, job, phone numbers, occupation and income! I tell you if I was a dirty dude…..I recognized some of those names! The ATL is a small town!

Call me cheap I am not paying a grand for a shot of ass! Then again I am not completely unfortunately looking which I gathered some of these big spenders were cursed in that regard. Nor do I need to be slap to get aroused. I am not going to say different strokes for different folks, there is something strange about you needing to get your ass beat to get off. Yes , she keep copious notes of all her sessions with these dudes, just a warning fellas you may get more than a back arch when you engage these women, I know if the guys knew how much intel she had on them they more than likely would flip out. I guess you call the balance of power.

The unit was arranged in a manner that you could not get a good look at anything, tons of boxes stacked to the ceiling. But experience gave me a good edge and I guess right everything I thought was in there was as expected.

We were at five hundred dollars on the bidding when the field narrowed down to this new guy and me. He really wanted it, I think he knew something, because the tried to scare me off by raising his bid to nine hundred and fifty dollars from five hundred, he started walking to the door to close it and I said a one thousand. The he got back in the game, he hit it at eighteen hundred, then proceeded to lower the door. I hit it at nineteen hundred. He had this look of incredible pain on his face; you know that look the nerd gets when the pretty girl goes off with the jock and she always goes off with the jock in the movies, in real life nerds are running shit!

Back to the unit…

I do not know who this fool thought he was messing with! When you are new feel out the landscape, I had five thousand on me and a credit card for backup, so he was not getting that unit! That is one thing about this business you can not judge these people by their appearance. There is money in this business big money. Sure that day I looked like a bum, I did not shave and I think I was flossing the wrinkle look.

I had a feeling I need to move this one, as soon as possible. I had my guys stay late and we came back around seven. We started stacking it high and tight. We always do they stuff looks deceiving in the units. This one was packed from the root to the toota, I am glad I came back in the van, we filled up the E250 cargo van and a 26 foot box truck with no room to spare!

We came out great for a G! She had three bedroom sets in there, dining room set with a matching, china cabinet, dinette, Maytag washer and dryer, three big screens, about a thousand dvds, even more cds. A wardrobe to die for, silver flatware, you name it she had it. She had some awesome high end watches, (Omega, Concord, IWC, Cartier) really nice watches that did quite well on eBay the watches paid for the unit, labor, diesel and threw off a large profit. Yes this was a Jackpot Unit.

Now to the good stuff! She laundered her money through a car dealership and dry cleaners, Madam X was on point with her businesses, hoing is a highly lucrative business she and her staff did four million a year, yes that is whole lot of hoing! Some was coming from the businesses…but damn! She kept journals, no I do not have them, and we destroyed a lot of stuff because you never know who may be looking for it. In case the law comes around I can truly say I forgot.

Madam X also had a little problem; she was in love with that nose candy, even found some in the strangest of places. You think you are opening lipstick it is cocaine, eye glass cases, cocaine compact cocaine you get the idea she was an addict, I know her dope man loved her! I also believe this was her downfall, in the unit were architecture plans for this dream house I assume, she was going to build or in the process of building, there were letter emails from the designers and builders, so she was definitely making plans for the future.

The folks at the storage facility said she was on a trip around the world and her credit card started rejected the charges. They said they only saw her once when she moved in and that was it. There really is no telling what happened to her.

But the unit talked; from the records some of her girls banded together and formed their own thing, there were notes from therapy sessions, yes Madam X was on the couch every Thursday discussing her unhappy inner child.

From the outside it looked like she had it all beauty, wealth and tons of trappings even with all of this she was not happy (she kept a journal) some dudes got issues, one of regulars paid her crazy money for her to humiliate him she wrote in her journal he disgusted her the most but she could get a gang of shoes after his sessions of ball stomping. Every dude reading this will wince and his balls will tense up, balls get hurt at the mere though of pain, let alone some chic stabbing her four inch heels in the boys!

It is units like this that get you hooked on this business, and it is not the money that does it okay…I am lying the money is a strong motivator, but being able to comb through the lives of these people on such a personal level was like and addiction to me, you never know what you are going to find.

Glendon Cameron

09/25/09

Long before the demise of the world economy, many folks in all walks of life lost their stuff at auction. However, if you use to have it large and now you don’t have it all. It devastating all the way around, firstly you lose your status then you lose all of your worldly possessions, it has got to a major mind fuck! I really feel for the people who lost these types of units. I am lying, if I felt that strongly I would not buy them. Call it a pang of sympathy.

It is one thing if you have always been poor and just one step away from being destitute; you are accosted to these types of life events. Over the years, I got quite a few of these units and always found treasures. Grandmothers Tiffany sterling silver place settings, or a rare statue, unique items from abroad. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff we as Americans can acquire.

One unit I remember in particular well it was two units which the auctioneer sold separately much to my disappointment. When you get the first unit and other bidders know you need the second unit they tend to stick it to you on the second one because they know you got to have it! The name in the ad was KK (yes all names are changed to protect the guilty) they both were 10x 20s which usually means you have the contents of a large home, hopefully someone with good taste. Know the all expensive items do not resale well.

The property manager hyped it up, she was never late and one day her credit card just stopped accepting the charges. They tried everything they could to find her, to no avail. This greatly increased my interest, sad but true, the best units I ever got were due to death, imprisonment or some other tragedy.

When the door went up I saw an old Thomasville bedroom set with a king poster bed, two nightstands, dresser and a high boy chest. I knew I could get 1200-1500 for that set alone. She was a girly girl, lots of floral print upholstery, pin stripe valances and lost of boxes with knick knack s and display items written on the side. Later on I found two exquisite mahogany curios in the back of unit two. Several instruments cases and what appear to the top of a front loader washer and driver (yes they were in there and only two years old)

Based on what I saw, and yes it is a gamble I went after the unit hard, I started it off at $500.00 and the unit quickly got to $1250 which was my last bid and fortunately for me the last bid. I knew they were going run me on part two. Which those old geezers did that one cost me $1350.00 I did not buy anything else after those two, I clearly got the best they had to offer that day.

After spending $2600.00 I called my guys and begin going through the stuff while I waited for their arrival. It shortly when from good to gooder! I had stuff strewn all over the parking lot, a leather sofa set nice! Books and CDs and DVDs, wrought iron dinette, not that put together crap but the real deal, this woman had great taste and the income to fulfill those tastes she was an medical doctor and a bit of a freak. She had a collection of the largest didlos I have ever seen! This stuff must have been special order!

About half way in the middle of the other unit I found the mother lode, Dr KK did not believe in banks nor conventional investments, she had her money in gold and real estate ventures, she left $25,000 in Kuggerands in that unit, which told me something happened to her, something bad. I would have made more money on the unit, but her stuff was so nice 90% of it went to my house. As Ice Cube said today was a good day!

I Am Going to Start a DoJo

Unit Cost $770.00 bucks

Bought in Buckhead

Location Atlanta/Japan

Age 39

Identifying Trademark- Renaissance Man Omsu

In terms of quality, taste, and a cultural experience unlike any other I have come across, this hands down is the best unit I have ever bought for the money. Omsu was a Cornell University graduate, he graduated Summa Cum Laude. In three years, this is strong as hell! I have nothing but the highest respect for this cat! He knew what he wanted in life and went for it.

We did not end up getting his unit for lack of payment; it was lack of interest in the Western world. Omsu left all of his undesired belonging in the A and went east, Far East to Japan to start a dojo!

Well, that was the story I got form the storage facility. Normally I do not care why it was lost, but I did feel a little something this was prime stuff, how could you just walk away from it?  I got over it quite quickly once we started loading the items.

I have heard of a midlife crises but this is ridiculous! I suppose when the feeling strikes you, it is so compelling that you must go with it, and he did! After his mother died he started questioning why he was living his life in the manner he did and was it worth it. Yes, there were journals in the unit. I am telling you people often leave their whole life story in these units.

In the personal effects there were every school transcript, every tax record, every pay stub, every direct deposit voucher from all jobs and businesses he had or owned. I have never seen anyone so neat. All file boxes were careful arranged and orderly, with a very distinctive penmanship almost like script, but it was print on the labels of each box. He was very organized and detailed. Nor have I seen anyone, color code their tax records before or since. Black for good years and red for well years in the red, which were the first two years of his consultation business.

He was at one time a consultant for the big six, or four or two, these things change so rapidly now in days. I never knew consultants made so much money, but I have never used their services. In my next life I want to be a consultant! I am not kidding. A quarter mil a year and a bonus that can equal or exceed your salary!

Sign me up Scotty!

I spent about four hours going through his personal papers; hey people put money in the strangest of places sometimes. Not to mention I am nosey! He was what you would call a Renaissance man, well educated, well read, a traveler and a man of very refined tastes.

He is the guy that you would see at a wine tasting that looks like he was born into that life with bespoke shirt, jacket and slacks set off by a very understated and well set of lace up shoes. With a thin as a stick of gum Patek Philippe gold watch on his wrist…..okay all of that stuff was in the unit, but it is a striking accurate visual of the man we called Omsu.

Depending on the greatness or the absolute horror of a unit, we give it a nickname based on the personality of the individual that lost the unit. So he was christened Omsu…due to his proclivities towards Asian Philosophy

He also left twelve cases of Jamaican Rum, in the unit, yes people leave alcohol in there all of the time. Apple rum, banana run, Appleton Farms rum, peach rum, oh none of it was open. I suspect he had that stocked for a party. That was a lot of alcohol it took me three or four years to go through my share.

Dude was also a name brand whore; his ideal of a discount store was Nordstrom’s. Everything was what we called ebayable; yes that is your new word for you today. Meaning you can easy put it on eBay and sell it for a nice price. Apple computer the one with the silver arm and floating monitor, cool!  Outstanding Sony stereo system and speakers, strange he did not own a TV or he took it with him. Crate and Barrel dishes and flatware, Calphalon pot and pans, Japanese steak knives, we got twelve hundred for those alone! Dyson vacuum cleaner, a kick boxing dummy, strike bag, tons of photo equipment, the cameras, and the lighting. Lighting and strobe flashes for camera shoots is wickedly expensive, we sold six of those lights that look like little black parachute or umbrellas for sixteen hundred dollars on eBay, to one guy. They were new in the box, that help a lot. He explained that when you need this stuff a deal is a steal!

Chrome weight set, a treadmill, about six hundred cds, hundreds of books, a killer wardrobe; it makes me wonder what he is wearing in Japan. Now the good stuff several very nice watches, cuff links and killer smell good. Yes, I kept all of that, I knew once I saw the furniture this was going to be a jackpot unit. Packed from the root to the toota!

Omsu was also a chief; he had the certificate and a ton of cookbooks, with a strong fascination for wine. No no no no he did not leave any of the good stuff in there, there were several receipt in there, maybe all, like I said this guy was organized and I found receipts where he spent six hundred dollars at Minks which was a local liquor store on four bottles of wine!

I wonder what he is cooking up right now.

There were several pictures of parties and events at his home which was laid! I saw many pieces of furnishings we did not get in the unit, his stuff was swank!

Damn!

He shopped at Cantoni a very high end modern furniture store and many of the items were from that store, a store were one coffee table can cost you four to seven thousand dollars, no the end tables are not included!

Nevertheless he left us plenty, a very nice Italian lacquer platform bedroom set, one the coolest dining room sets in history, several modular book case and the coldest of cold black leather sofa and two chairs, you have seen this furniture in movies. Actually TI was sitting in one the chairs on his MTV special before he went to the pokey. Several accent pieces, mirrors , candle sticks, silver photo frames, so much stuff it was unreal.

I got a LOT of static from people on Craigslist and ebay about the pricing of the furniture which was fifteen thousand dollars for all of the furniture, which was a steal, the retail on this stuff was forty grand.

I even had one guy tell me, he would give me three thousand cash for all of it today! I can come get it right now, I bet he could!

FOOL!!!

I have a very strong furniture background I knew what I had and I knew sooner or later someone who knew just how expensive and special this furniture was, would pay close to what I was asking, it is not like you can find very high end furniture in damn new condition at below wholesale pricing, well today perhaps back then no, every day.

One nice lady saw it from NYC saw the furniture and called me, she bought it over the phone! We delivered it to her condo in Buckhead, funny it started there and went right back there!

She did not even haggle. It is amazing how many well off people let perfect strangers in their homes; the manager of the condo property opened the door and was ghost in about two minutes while my guys installed the furniture. I had to find him to make sure the place was locked up! This was a common experience. We went to the same neighborhoods over and over selling on Craigslist. She was moving here and was getting the place ready before she came down, how cool is that?

After she got her she bought a lot more of his stuff, why not? Omsu had impeccable taste! Dude had swag before most knew what swag was!

The one thing I regret was selling the gong, a real Japanese gong, I thought it was unique, but back then I was all about selling stuff. I sold it for two hundred and fifty, which I thought was great until I did more research Google was not as efficient as it is now back in 2003, so I missed some things, like a real gong can go for thousands! Understand this was not that crap you see it souvenir shops. It had that dooooooooong sound that was very clear, clean and deep.

He used it in his DoJo here in Atlanta, we got several exercise mats and sparring equipment for a team, leg protectors, arm protectors, chest protectors, shin guard helmets, bamboo swords and two real swords which I thing he only used for display and several uniforms he was deep into jujutsu and swordsman ship. Really enough stuff to start your own king fu mafia.

We were selling Omsu stuff for months; the bulk of it went in six weeks, when they are this good you will remember them for life. It was also great that it was his choice to part ways with this stuff; I guess he wanted a clean break and move forward without the weight of his past life dragging him down. I wish him well and just want to say thanks for making it possible for me to get one of the best units of my life and some killer smell good and watches!

The cool thing about this business is you meet a lot of interesting and intriguing people, I have sold stuff to the producer of the Anderson Cooper show, she is like five feet table but very cool and others. She found our stuff on Craigslist, I miss the old Craigslist! This is the type of stuff you get out of a Jackpot Unit, we made money and we kept stuff a lot of stuff, when it was over and done, we made nearly thirty thousand dollars of this one unit. This is the type of thing to get you hooked!

Glendon

Typical Example of A Very Good Self Storage Unit Brought At Auction

BT Lost her stuff

Unit Cost $675.00 bucks

Labor $125.00

Bought in Snellville GA

Location Atlanta

Age 38

Identifying Trademark- Gold, Gold and more Gold!

I really wish I had saved more pictures of the items we sold; I can find some here and there. But most are gone. I never knew I would be writing about this stuff! Sometimes you just never know what life has in store for you.

This is a Unit I got in the first week of October 2007, it is what I classified as a Grade A unit or Jackpot unit, on this type of buy you make ten times or more of what you spend. This one was a quick lick, I bought it Wednesday and by Saturday 3PM it was all gone! (The big stuff, her clothes and shoes went on eBay.)

Lovely stuff and a speedy profit, who can ask for anything more in this business?

On a lot of the units it is going to take more than a few days to get your capital back and your profit, but this is okay. Once your business is established you may have a new problem, not being able to keep up with the demand! There are only some many hours in the day.

Folks that live say one to two hours outside of a major city and they do not have a really good thrift shop in town can clean up in this business. I know quite a few people who are doing just that!

On this particular purchase I could feel there was something special about the unit. It was a five by ten unit with the five being the deep aspect of the unit and the ten being the width.

It was crammed with stuff, from the roota to the toota as I like to say. I could see a complete bedroom set, dining room set, coffee table set and a leather sofa set! This was done by professional movers, not a lick of space was wasted and the poor lady, we will just call BT had impeccable tastes!

The outstanding characteristic of this self storage unit was the amazing amount of jewelry she had. It was in the last place we normally find jewelry, the jewelry chest. It was choc fill of 10K and 14K gold rings, several broken gold chains, silver chains and a large assortment of costume of jewelry.

To this day I have never seen one woman with fifty two gold rings, and several silver rings in one unit. Some of the rings had diamonds, and others mounted with rubies, sapphires, topaz, quartz, turquoise. She had very good tastes, none were gaudy or ostentatious which means they are easy to sell.

I know a lady that owned a very nice antique store with a large jewelry counter. She sold a ton of jewelry for Christmas and this was the season. She was my first stop.

After I started bringing jewelry out of the chest, she said “how much for all of it?’”

I already had weighed the rings and it was a total of two hundred and eighty six  grams of gold,  so on the scrap value I was looking at four thousand alone and she knew if I did not get what I asked I was going to my gold guy. Well I was going to see him any way, more on that later.

I said without blinking six thousand that would be for the all of the jewelry, costume jewelry and the jewelry. Which was very nice, solid wood with that odd antique look her customers loved (I had already checked for name brand costume jewelry, some of it does very well on eBay, David Yurman comes to mind)

She mulled it over for a second, “okay I will have to write you a check.”

It was a good deal for her and a great deal for me. She needed the inventory; her counters had a lot of holes in it. It would take her months to get this much jewelry, months she did not have with it been the Christmas season, that is if she could get it!

I figured she could make twelve thousand or more on the jewelry, she had a large customer based that loved her to pieces! I guess she did too. Why did I not sell it myself?

Time.

One of the things you have to know in this business are what you do really well and what your strengths are.

I could have sold it and it may have taken me six months or year or longer. Taking time away from my core business of being a thrift store and stocking it with items I know my customers would buy quickly.

Our focus in the store was furniture and jewelry is a high touch high theft item, we decided not to deal with so I always outsourced the jewelry or sold the jewelry online.

We have done business several times and I never brought her crap, so she only passed on what I brought to her twice in four years. We chatted for a while and I helped her, sort out some of the stuff and I went and got her lunch after cashing the check. She just handed me six grand, lunch was just a small thank you, sometimes, a little good will can go a long way.

My rule of thumb for taking checks from you is that you must be a senior citizen. Or I know you are rolling in the dough, in six years I have never had a bad check. As I think about it I did not take too many checks.

Later on that day I was meeting with my gold guy, he was buying and reselling gold long before it became a TV infomercial. Remember, I had several broken gold chains that came up to one hundred and seventy four grams of scrap gold which I got nineteen hundred dollars from my gold guy, which really was eighteen hundred and eighty six dollars but he always rounded up, he was cool like that.

In a day I am up seven thousand and one hundred dollars…and the weekend was coming up. At the end of this post I will insert pictures of the furniture, which we did twenty eight hundred dollars on, I put it on craigslist and it was going like hotcakes.

BT’s clothing was HOT, she was a name brand kid and her stuff sold well on eBay. I think it was another grand, but I closed the books on this one after the weekend. After a nine thousand and nine hundred dollar profit on an eight hundred buy you could say I was well pleased!

Glendon