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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