It was bad; the smell was so strong my eyebrows fell off! Okay sue me. My quest for profit supersedes even the foul stench of stank! My first thought was, that this unit belonged to a man.

It was huge, it was dark and stanky! Really really, really, really, stanky! I got it in College Park or as some other folks refer to it as “ Colli Paark” . Normally there ain’t shit over there, on this day there really was.

Who knew?

Fortunately for me, it was the beginning of fall. Otherwise, this unit would have been hard as hell to clean out. When the door first opened, I got that little feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the feeling of huge potential, more so than the smell running out the unit and bitch smacking all of us in the face.

Sometimes even now, I get butterflies, just at the thought of a killer unit. It was strange, shit scattered all over the place. Like I said before, it was a little stanky! Some people actually started backing up away from the door.

Granted, the unit looked like hell from the outside. But when you’re a professional buyer, you have to look at the unit totally. Mentally mapping out the unit, evaluating the good, and judging the bad is required to be a professional buyer and of course smelling the stanky odor rolling out of the dark recesses of junk.

In this state of disarray, I saw a lot of valuable items. From my time in the military and training to be a lab tech, we use a lot of manual scientific equipment. Being the nerd that I am, I often researched other scientific equipment which gave me the base knowledge to know what I was looking at, in this storage unit.

You could see all types of scientific equipment from the door; I knew what some of those items were. I saw a radiograph, the spectrograph and an xray machine. Who in the hell has all of that stuff? Clearly, some off the wall dude.

The curiosity factor is what made me buy the unit. It looked like a complete catastrophe, yet I just had that feeling. Some of my friends were looking at me like I was crazy when I started bidding on the unit.

I did not really see it was going for much, thus, I could make a lot of money off this unit. If you see my YouTube video “Stanky Units Make Money” then you know what I’m talking about.

However, new people will fuck up some good shit! I opened up the bid of $50.00, the unit appeared to be a 10 by 20 (it really was 10 by 30) and I was willing to go to $250. Little do not know this new person would pop my bubble. When he placed an opening bid of freakin $200!

Just to get over with, I just went ahead and bid my $250 mister new person said” too rich for my blood” and walked away. I let a sigh and put a lock on my brand new stanky unit.

This was one of those units that you just could wait to clean out. I knew it walls going to take a lot of work. So I placed this unit at the end of the load list. The storage property people were so happy to get rid of this unit, that they gave me a month to clean it out.

Believe me I took full advantage of that month! And my day of reckoning was coming soon. We had cleaned out 15 storage auction units that week. My guys were tired and I was cranky.

If I did not clean this unit out, I was going to have to pay a month of storage for the unit. I really did not want to do that. It is best, to get the units cleaned out as fast as possible. So I strengthened my resolve, cleaned out the truck, and headed to College Park with the crew..

Just be sure, we did not have to spend as much time going back and forth we took two trucks. I am sooooo glad we did! The unit was not as bad as I thought it was. But there was a lot more stuff than what I originally suspected.

Units can be deceptive in what you think is in there, versus what you haul out. In this case it was a good thing, we were moving quality stuff out of a unit, I felt perhaps I had paid to much for it, this mental note quickly changed after ten minutes of loading.

After we got past the first 10 feet, the unit really became very very very interesting. The first half was filled with Scientific Equipment. Old radio vacuum tubes, these would like hotcakes on Ebay.

This is where the part about learning new stuff comes into play. What may look like a box of old dusty bulbs, but turned out to be very rare radio tubes. We cleared $850 just on the old radio equipment on Ebay.

The deeper we dug, the better the unit became, this guy was a true collector. We found antique toy collections, antique railroad trains, trucks, a little model towns. A great bidder in Germany bid $2500.00 for one of those little towns, when it wasn’t so little; it shipped in a huge box for $650.00! This was with using a discount of a friend at FEDEX!

He was more than happy when he got it!

The previous owner of this storage unit was an engineer at Lockheed. For all I know he truly could have been a rocket scientist! He was another Georgia Tech alumni, I have gotten quite a few of those guys units. Often when they pass on, it’s the kids that end up losing the unit.
If you saw the movie “Ironman II” there was this one part in the movie, work Tony was looking in the old movie of his dad. This dude had that type of persona, slim with a crew cut and there were a lot of those awful 1950s 1960s suits in the unit. Maybe I should have kept them, there back in style now.

For the most part he seems straight, if I had to guess and I am. The reason that this unit came up to auction, was the kids inherited his house and moved all his personal stuff into a storage unit.

There were few a letters but they’re pretty benign, nothing to write home about pun intended. Just a few bits and pieces about his life, just adding up all of the equipment notes and books that work in the unit, it’s clear he was a very smart man.

Abundantly obvious was his passion for tinkering, all of this stuff was just as hobby. He retired from Lockheed years ago and some of the notes were fairly recent. Perhaps he was building a rocket in the basement. He was a very interesting dude indeed.

Old scientific equipment goes very well in collector circles. There are people who love old stuff. Our scientist had tons of that type of stuff. Old calculators, old textbooks, and things that make you think of a 1950s scientist.

The books were so old that many did not even have ISBN numbers. These types of books are always fun to enter into the Amazon sales system. Many of those books we were the first person to list online. Over the course of the year they did $1500 in sales.

Another benefit of being a storage auction person is you develop a huge network of resources. People that you can just call up and say hey I have this item; do you want to buy it? On many occasions, I had items sold before they were even loaded on the truck.

That is the case with the scientific equipment, a guy had come in my store inquiring about old equipment that scientists used. I had nothing for him that day but he left his business card. This was months earlier, I call him up and told them what I had. He said I’ll take it, I gave him a price of $1200 for everything. He said if it is what you say it is no problem.

He came to the store, saw the inventory and slowly peeled off twelve $100 bills. I helped him load everything and he was gone within 20 minutes.

Sometimes it is just that easy. This was a great unit in many regards. It was interesting and full. I like strange units, seem things I’ve never seen before and getting that put my little chubby fingers all over the stuff.

This is one of the great things about buying units at auction, you get to go through stuff, check out the history. Well, at least going through other people’s lives is fun to me. One of the niftiest things in this unit was a large globe.

As I held the globe in my hands, slowly turning it, I realized some of those countries did not exist anymore. It’s pretty deep when you think about. Being a student of history, it is amazing how often we repeat the same mistakes.

I think the best personal item out of the unit, was a collection of fountain pens. I’m a big fountain pen buff. There’s just something about the written word, the tools and paper of the written word that speaks to me.

I kept those pens for many years, is pretty cool that you can have an item and use it, derive pleasure from it, and sell it and make a nice chunk of change. I sold those pens individually online; altogether they brought in $600. Not bad for something collecting dust sitting on my desk.

The furniture in the unit was just OK. Nothing really spectacular, the nicest thing in the unit was an old writing desk. Which sat in a corner of the warehouse for few years, one day when I was bored I decided to strip the table.

It originally was this pukey looking oak color, I decided to do it in a very deep mahogany stain. This was my first attempt at staining furniture, the project turned out very well. I put it on Craigslist for $650. After a few days I got a call if you take $500 off and get it right now. OK! She came with a truck and some blankets and was gone and 5 minutes.

When you get your inventory from storage units, the possibilities of making money are endless. That little project, start my furniture rehab career. After that I started looking for used furniture to redo in storage units. I got so many cheap it wasn’t funny.

Other than a writing desk and some side tables I ended up tossing the rest of the furniture it was not even worth giving away. What I’d do it all over again? Oh yes baby yes! Made a lot of money on that spanking unit.

Later on, I discovered the source of the smell. Two chemicals one being a household cleaner and the other some industrial solvent mixed together which threw off that wicked smell. Once we get rid of the box containing those two dueling agents, we were good to go.

On this hot summer day our list of auctions was huge! In the paper there were a total of 140 storage auction units listed for sale. Knowing what I know about storage auction tendencies, at least half of that number should have been available for auction.

When we got to the first property all the storage units that were listed to be up for auction were still available. I just knew in my heart of hearts, this was going to be a very long day. The latest I was at auction was 11PM at night!

There was not much to see at the first property. They had total of 12 units to be auctioned off, there was nothing I was really in interested in buying. The only fun that I really had was playing with the new people.

I ran one guy up, on this dusty, stanky little unit, he showed me, yes he did! He paid $300 for the $50.00 unit. Sometimes playing with the new people is more fun than buying the unit!

I tricked another chick into buying a worthless unit (yep I was an asshole!) One of the things about new people is they ask a lot of stupid questions! And tend to get on your last nerve. This usually gets rid of them!

We left the first property, getting on the road heading to the second location. I spied one of the new people pulling in right behind me. He was so close I could see he needed to trim his nose hair!

Often, I become a little perturbed, when I have strangers following me, without asking me. Every now and then, it happens, well on this day I decided to have fun with my brand new friends.

There was a gas station coming up just before we got to Peachtree Industrial, I pulled in next to a pump, got out of my car and ran into the station. I had a full take of gas and just need to lure the new folks out of their vehicle.

They pulled in about three gas pumps over, the tall lanky one got out of the car first, and the chick that was with him, kinda rolled out of the car like she was constipated. I was in the back of the store watching them.

Closer, closer they came; I went out of the side door and waited for them to go inside of the store. I crept back to my car like a Ninja; I was in my car and almost on the street before they realized I was not in the store!

Tall and Lanky threw down his Twinkies and bolted out of the store, running to his car, the chick waddled behind him as fast as she could, I was laughing so hard I almost hit a mini van!

I was in the 540i so by the time they got to the street I was gone like cash in Vegas!

When they showed up at the other property they had missed half of the auction, constipated chick was giving me the side eye….oh mutherfucking well!

I bought the first unit at the second property; it was the inventory from a bike shop that stuff always sells well!

Really I stole that one for $75.00 back then people were not into box units in the same manner as they are now. This was when ebay was a killer for me OMG!

I got tons of box units for little or nothing, now that was beautiful thang!

I passed on the other four units after it, just as Tall and lanky and crew showed up, the door was open to a very curious unit.

Which was a loaded 10 x 20 filled from the roota to the toota. It did not look that promising from the door there was a big old musty couch right at the front and some old heavy mattresses filling the rest of the door.

When I bought this unit it did not look very good, however something was talking to me, I was completely sucked into buying it. I had a good feeling about what was in it, I cannot tell you why.

Apparently so did someone else we started bidding hot and heavy.

I opened up the bids at $25, this blue haired little old lady, started bidding on the freaking unit! What in the hell was his little old woman going to do with all that stuff….

At this point my mind was made up, I was getting this unit, and little blue hair was not getting the senior discount! Man, woman or dog, if you are bidding I am bringing the heat!

Bidding escalated quickly, it went from $25 to $75 to $100 to $150 to $200 to $300 in a minute. This little old woman was tough! She was very competitive; at this juncture I was getting ready to stop bidding.( yep the little old lady was punking me out)

I like making money on units, not proving I have the money to bid, there is a world of difference between the two schools of thought.

Some folks think because you bid a lot and high that you are making money, nothing could be further from the truth.

I know of some people the money they have in their pocket is all they have in the world!

As I was getting ready to walk away from the storage unit, there was a gentle incline. When I got to the top of the hill, I saw there was some really interesting stuff in the back of the unit. Why I did not jump up to check is in first place I have no clue.

The little old lady put the hex on me! With new information running through my mind, I got my second wind, and then I hit the unit really hard.

She was already at $425, I just went into $500 in the little blue haired lady looked at me, wrinkled up her nose and stuck her tongue out at me!

Then the little hussy walked off!

In short order I had myself a unit, some of the others looked at me like I had lost my mind. “You normally do not buy junk” I just looked at him and said “I am running low on junk, need to get some today” other bidders starting chiming in.

“Hey come by place I got better junk than that in my trash heap, you can have it!” A few others said the same. You can have a lot of fun at auctions; there are a lot of colorful people in the storage auction world.

I have bought a lot of weird and profitable units but this dude takes the cake! He was Jack Bauer and a conspiracy theorist all wrapped in one. He was a Marine with a passion for guns! It is clear something happened to this dude that is the only way sum it up why this unit went to auction.

Based on the information I got out of the unit, he was the “pry the gun from my cold dead hands” type. There is no way voluntary he would have lost all of this stuff. It is a sad fact of life of the best units at auction come from very unfortunate circumstances.

Once we got past the old musty sofa and heavy as hell mattresses, things started looking up! A beautiful Sheraton chest was right behind the sofa, wrapped in moving blankets.

Next to it was a Danish (mid century furniture) bedroom set, what I can say? This guy had very eclectic tastes when it came to furniture! Nothing matched and it all was in great condition! I made well over $2000 just on the furniture!

He had beautiful mahogany desk and matching credenza, stacked on top of each other. Our survivalist Marine was an engineer by training and social scientist by vocation.

He went to Georgia Tech on the GI Bill and became a mechanical engineer. I do believe some of his thought processes were due to his time spent in Vietnam. One thing about these combat veterans, they have a lot of loyalty.

As twisted as some of his thinking was, it was abundantly clear he was of the sentimental bent in life, displayed in action by what appears to be every letter written to him kept in several boxes in the unit.

Some humorous, some sad and some beautiful, dude had solid friends! When I look at how we use to be as a society it make me wonder if the price do progress is too high.

To me the greatest thing about the unit was the letters and the combat gear. He kept all of his Marine Uniforms and by the look of his pictures he could still wear all of that stuff. I love old things and history, this unit was stacked with black and white photos, period piece furniture and humor.

In his files where several essays about how he felt America was going to hell in a hand basket and how he planned on surviving the upcoming civil war. He also felt feminism had killed the American way of life.

“Women are strange beasts, they say we are equal, yet become highly aggravated when preferential treatment normally shown to women is withheld because they are no longer deemed the weaker sex”

You know what I agree with ole boy! He wrote that in the 70’s I think he was way before his time. If he is still alive dude has got to be in his 70,s by now.

I pulled twenty one guns out of his unit, all name brand, all very well taken care of and in cases! I got $900 for the two Remington Shotguns alone, they were NICE!

The guy that bought them said he would have paid $700 for just one of the shot guns, if he bought it new, say dude was happy! He got what he wanted and saved a lot of money!

This guy was preparing for Armageddon, he had guns for every type of situation. He had small arms for close combat situations. ( 8 side arms) What was amazing were the sawed off shot guns, old side by sides that be cut a much of the barrel off! Side by side shotguns are very very expensive! (Sawed off shot guns are illegal)

Perhaps he cut the shotguns in half because they were old; this is the only way I could see him damaging such beautiful weapons. There was a very nice LC Smith double barrel 12 gauge in the unit which I got $3500 if it was in better condition I could have gotten more!

The name makes all the difference in the firearm world! He also had survival manuals, MRE’s water purification pills and medical supplies in the unit. This stuff reminded me of going through my uncle’s old Navy stuff, it was a treasure hunt!

Old photo, medals, uniforms, fountain pens, straight razors it seems that generation of men had their grooming rituals down, it is not so much like that today, where cats are walking around with their boxers exposed. To me that is such a bitch move.

If the year was 1950 this is the guy that would have been a bomb shelter company owner, not only would he have been the president he would have been a customer!

What I liked about this guy was his diligence; he was a dedicated soul to whatever he was engaged in. (he was also a hell of a writer) Determined, precise and dedicated! It must have taken him years to go all of the manuals (they sold like hot cakes on Amazon) many were out of print.

Made $18000 on the unit, I got over $12,000.00 for the guns, it took me a year to sell them all, which averages to a grand a month for a unit that cost me $500.00 this is how it can go in the wonderful world of storage auctions.

To learn who you can be a storage auction pro buy my book

I was curious to see what was behind the door at a storage unit auction and curious about the prices that the storage units were bid up to. I also found out I’m not the only one who has experienced the ‘thrill’ of an auction.

I was determined to find one nearby so I didn’t waste gas if it was a bomb. I found a couple near my zip code when I went to the Auction Zip Locator; they have auctions for real estate, businesses, homes and storage units.

So what is a storage auction exactly?
“It’s a Treasure Hunt!! Self-store facilities are all over the country. People store their possessions when they’re moving or when they simply need more space. Businesses use self-store facilities as an alternative to renting warehouse space. Despite management’s efforts to collect rent, some folks simply don’t pay their bill and management must sell the contents of the unit to the highest bidder.”

On this day I got to see 3 of the large storage units put up for sale. The ad said it started at 11am and I got there about 10 minutes early, already about 25 people were there waiting – Families, friends and single men and women – a nice variety of young and old. Once the auction was to start, we had a good 3 dozen people ready to take a peek at what was left behind in the storage units.

While waiting I noticed a few tools of the trade:
1. Wear old clothes – If you win, you will be taking home dusty, greasy and sticky items.
2. Carry a big light – The lights most people had were handheld spotlights to see into the back of the units
3. Have a truck – Most who were bidding drove up with their trucks or had pull behind flatbeds to take the stuff home immediately

While waiting I wandered around and eaves dropped on the stories and tips being told by the experienced buyers.

One young lady in a baseball cap told a friend of hers about buying a unit for $500 that had a bunch of boxes in it and very large, filled black trash bags what she found was kind of interesting and I will come back to that later.

An older gentleman told a couple new to the storage auction experience, a few tips- the smaller units usually go for a couple hundred and the larger ones can go into the thousands. He also said that you can tell a possible good find based on the type of boxes used (thick, sturdy ones) and the way things are stacked in the unit if they person has valuable items.

Dax, the auctioneer, walked us to the first storage unit and laid down the ground rules:
1. Must pay Cash after the auction (plus tax)
2. Must clean out the unit in 24 hours
3. Can not go into the unit, only look in and can’t touch anything

After the rules were given out, they unlocked the unit and tossed open the door. Spotlights were clicked on and weaving and bobbing began as everyone peered into the unit to see as much as they could.

After a couple of minutes, auctioneer Dax, opened up the bidding at a low, but reasonable price.

Storage unit 1
This unit had a bed, box spring and mattress, a poker table, heavy plastic table and chairs and a washer and dryer in the back. The bidding started at $100 and we were off. Occasionally Dax had to stop and let people know they didn’t want to bid against themselves or help need to explain where in price the bidding was, but it all went smoothly. The unit sold for $325.

Storage unit 2
When the door flew open on this unit, people oohed and ahhed, a couple guys walked away bummed telling their friends, “This is out of my price range.” The unit had a 5 foot tall tool box, tools for woodworking, a gun safe was in the back, a couple of rifle cases sat beside it and stacked to the ceiling were boxes and boxes of thick, sturdy liquor boxes all neatly organized. This unit started off at $500 but jumped quickly to a couple thousand before the final two bidders fought over it, the storage unit was sold for $3600.

Storage unit 3
After the previous unit, people were excited to see the potential of the this unit. It wasn’t as spectacular, but was probably about average. This unit had a lot of furniture, large pieces and small, mostly wood. A few lamps scattered here and there and a very dusty mountain bike at the entrance. The bidding again started at $100 and ended in the 300 range.

The half hour went quickly and the experience was an enjoyable one , Dax Gillium of the ShurSuccess Auction Services had a congenial style that put us all at ease, both newbies and experienced bidders. It was a free and fun way to pass the time that I wouldn’t mind doing again.

I certainly don’t have a few thousand lying around to buy up self storage units as either a hobby or a resell business, but it was neat to see what was behind the doors. Which brings me back to the young lady in the baseball cap and what her $500 bought her.

After she bought the unit full of boxes and garbage bags, she and a friend looked through the boxes and found they all contained Avon supplies, Avon collectibles and samples. And what was in the garbage bags? Trash, every garbage bag had crumpled up newspapers, peanuts and Styrofoam. From what I overheard, it sounded like a bust as she recouped only a couple hundred on what she bought the storage unit for. Sometimes you come out a winner with something good and sometimes you lose.

Original article link- http://frugalforlife.blogspot.com/2009/04/experiencing-self-storage-unit-auction.html

by Max Wong on 5 October 2009

This week I did an intervention on Sarah, one of my dearest friends. It wasn’t the first time. Over the last few years I have unsuccessfully attempted to get her to seek help for a problem that has cost her conservatively $48,000 and put financial and emotional stress on her family.

This week, after over five years of trying to manage her problem, she finally hit rock bottom. She once again had to borrow money from her family — this time to pay for her daughter’s healthcare. Sarah had $800 of the $900 doctor bill in the bank, but she’d already earmarked that money for the horrible monkey on her back. Sarah has a substance abuse problem — but not with drugs. Sarah has a problem with self storage.

Sarah used to have financial stability. But five years ago she made a major life change when she decided, at age 40, to adopt a child and become a single parent. Sarah sold her beautiful 3000 square foot home so she could afford to quit her high-powered job and be a stay at home mom until her daughter could start pre-school. She moved into a 1200 square foot apartment in a good school district. This was all part of a good, long term plan.

Unfortunately, she then made what became possibly the worst financial decision of her entire life: She put the 1800 square feet worth of possessions that didn’t fit into the apartment into self storage.

Using a technique that drug dealers use to reel in future customers, the storage company offered Sarah, the first time user, free product to ensure her loyalty. Convinced that she would be able to sell, donate or otherwise dispose of her extra stuff during the “First 30 Days Free Rent” period that her storage company offers to all new customers, Sarah moved her designer guest room furniture, her Christmas decorations, her art collection, etc into four of the cheapest storage units available.

“I’m just going to use this as a staging area to get organized,” she told me at that point in time. “That way, I’ll have four weeks to figure stuff out and won’t have to make any financial decisions about what to get rid of under duress.”

She never moved out.

Although she has plenty of very valuable things in storage, as we surveyed the contents of one of Sarah’s units earlier this week, she finally did the math. Even if she pulled everything out of the unit and set it on fire in the parking lot, it would still be a better financial decision than keeping it in storage for another month. 5 years x $200 a month per unit x 4 units = $48000. And that total doesn’t even account for the money spent on gasoline to get her to and from her storage or all the late fees she’s paid on other bills because she chose to pay her storage bill on time so her stuff wouldn’t be seized for non-payment. The phone company can turn off your service, but the storage company can auction off your dream diary, fake IDs, and herpes medication to the highest bidder.

Although Sarah’s situation may be the worst that I know of personally, she’s hardly alone. According to the Self Storage Association, 50% of storage unit renters are storing what won’t fit into their homes. 1 out of every 11 Americans rents storage.

Watching Sarah’s horrible journey has made me realize that, although self storage (like easy credit), can be beneficial to a percentage of the population, it’s a pact with Satan for many folks who don’t have an iron fist over their finances or excellent time management skills. Quite simply, it’s bad on several fronts.

Self storage is a bad investment
I called four different storage companies with units in my area of Los Angeles. The cheapest price for the smallest storage space, a 5 x 5 unit, in my neighborhood is $67 per month. The first month costs just a mere $1, but that’s not counting the one time only $22 “Administration Fee” that they’ll also tack onto the first 30 days.

Although all those numbers sound doable financially, if I rented this space, I’d be out a whopping $760 in the first 12 months, all to rent a space that’s the size of my laundry room. In other words, stuff that isn’t functional enough to put in my house and use every day would become more and more expensive with each passing year.

(On a side note, I had to hang up on three out of the four storage sales reps because I was getting such a hard sell, that they continued to demand my personal information even after I’d told them that their rental prices were beyond my budget.)

Self storage can lead to overconsumption
Self storage is like diet food for material goods. It fools the mind by fooling the eye. If your clutter isn’t visible in your house, do you really have a spending problem?

The first self storage facilities were built in Texas in the late 1960’s. It took 25 years to build the first one BILLION square feet of storage. But it took just eight years (1998-2005) to add the second billion. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the average 1960’s home was 1200 square feet. In 2004 the average home had ballooned to almost twice that size to 2330 square feet.

Bigger houses are harder to fill up, which may explain why Americans buy twice the number of consumer goods than the citizens of any other first world nation. (Okay, so we’re a geographically huge country, but if we’ve got such big homes, why do we need an additional billion square feet of storage space?) The environmental cost of creating, transporting and finally housing two billion square feet of unused possessions is mindboggling.

Original article link- http://www.wisebread.com/5-ways-self-storage-units-are-more-sad-museums-than-savvy-solutions

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That Chi Town Chic

Age 36
Style- Fly as Hell
Profession –Sugar Daddy Bait

I woke up with that feeling “something good is popping off today” got up brushed my teeth and ran a rag over the dome. Being a morning person, I was way extra on this day. Perhaps because all of the auctions were in town and I would not be driving all over the creation.

I hate traffic with a passion, it was the beginning of fall and it was cool enough to ride with the sunroof open, which I love!

Feeling a little grumble in the middle space I stopped at a Waffle House close to the first auction. There were a few other bidders with the same grumble. I acknowledge them and sat at my table.

I was one of the first (if not the first) on the auction trail to spend the money on a Verizon Air card, gave me fairly decent internet access in most places around town. I had just sold an antique bedroom set on eBay and the bidder paid instantly things were looking up!

Nothing like starting the day with a fresh money, so I splurged on the All Star with the pecans. Checked a few more emails and shut it down. I had over $ 3900.00 in PayPal and $4000.00 on me and all of the storage spots accepted credit cards…most in town do not.

I was loaded for bear that day.

Quickly looked at my watch and rolled out, time was slipping away and if you were late you could not bid. I threw my money on the table and grabbed my stuff and rose up, as I was putting my seat beat on I saw the other bidders rushing to their cars.

We all arrived at the same time with 5 minutes to spare, there were only nine people at this auction, and it was looking good for the kid. There were 22 units advertised and they still had 15, my palms started sweating, the air was just right!

I was the last to sign in and we were behind the gate, The first unit was not that far away, there is a certain anticipation when you are at the door, are you going to see trash or treasure?

It is part of the fun!

The door rolled up and it looked like a cabinetry shop, table saws, drills, crown molding, wood and it was packed looked to be a 10 x 20 maybe larger. I walked away; my customer base did not like stuff like that. The bidding started at $750 and quickly ended at $1650.00

The next three units were somewhat uneventful, went for less than a $100.00 each. I just knew that something awesome was there, to this day I cannot tell you why I felt like this, it happens to me a lot, keeping the faith I walked with the crowd.

The fourth unit was part of one of a two-fer. I looked at my ad and there were no units in the name of the same person. The manager solved my conundrum, one was in the daughters name and the other unit was in her mother’s name, but both belonged together.

With that the door was opened and it was my type of unit!

Loaded with home accent pieced, clothing and furniture, I hit it at $500.00 I knew it was a 10 x 25 and we were off, $600, $700, $800, $1000 and I rammed it to $1330.00 going once, going twice sold!

I knew it was a damn good unit (how good would come later) I placed my disk lock on it and caught up with the crowd. They did not do the other unit right after my first one. We looked at 3 more before getting to the second one (I bought all three, clothing units I got really cheap) .

We got to part two of my deal and it was a 10 x 15 stacked, I started the bidding off at $250.00 and of course they were not going to be easy on me, the second part end of cost me $1000.00 they knew I had to have it, so they all went in.

Normally that unit would have cost $500.00 max. I placed my lock on it and decided that no one was getting anything cheap the rest of the day. The next units were nothing I wanted, yet I bid on them hard just to return some favors.

So I am five units up at the first spot! Logistics start to come into play at this point, we had 8 more locations to view merchandise for today. I ended up buying 12 units that day, but we are going to talk about that Chi Town Chic!

I did not go to auctions the next day, we start loading at 6AM we got 8 out of the 12 units loaded before 4PM good stuff was coming out of the boxes left and right, I was feeling the love from the storage auction Gods! I was also glad I rented another truck or we would have been only half way done!

(Sometimes when you have a lot of units to clean out two or three trucks and extra hands is the way to go)

Around 6PM we were at the first spot where I got the two-fer. I knew this was going to be a lot of stuff and light would be fading fast so we got to it. We got the big one first, it looked better the second time around!

The first 10 feet were boxes of clothing and accent items, great stuff, and women’s stuff a wardrobe box broke open and spilled out at least 30 leather jackets ( women with a lot of leather jackets usually have a lot of really nice shoes!) she did not disappoint this stuff was niiiiiiiiiicccccccccceeeeeeee!

It kept getting better and better! That Chi Town chic was absolutely fine and gorgeous based on her pictures of herself in the unit! (Pretty girls for some reason often have a lot of photos of their selves in their units) She was definitely a top shelf chic, leather boots filled up two wardrobe boxes ( she wore a size 8.5-9 which right smack in the middle of my customer base)

Oh did she have killer style! Ms lady was an size 8-10 and baby girl was stacked. I noticed all the men she was with were …er…mature. This pattern would repeat itself box by box. She was well traveled, photos from all over the world. …yes with grandpa or chester the molester.

After getting excited over the nice clothes, the furniture gave me a second rush; she had the best of the best. A beautiful dining room set, seated 10, complete with a tall china cabinet! Most table sets that you will get out of storage units will seat 6, if you are lucky.

Nice vintage crystal pieces filled several boxes (more than likely her moms) I do not think they lived together since there were no mature lady clothing ( shoot maybe mom was hot too)

Before we were halfway thru with the first unit $10,000+ popped in my head (I was wrong we did $15K off her stuff) Out of all her nice stuff the back-story was the most interesting.

That Chi Town Chick was sugar daddy bait. The reason I am certain of this is there were no W-2s in the unit; however there were plenty of old bank states all with regular deposits in the $2000-$8000.00 a month range going back several years.

Also a stack of self employment tax forms and no one work ID, but when you are beautiful you do not have to work?

Right?

She also had plenty of mutual funds statements one had a balance of $300,000! Why she lost her units is beyond me, she seemed to have plenty of loot!

Now to the dirt!

The letters! She had all types of men who were willing to pay for her time. Each one, old, grey and apparently in poor health (judging by the pictures) just a squeezing on her young and tender flesh.

She had three main sugar daddies, if there is such a thing. An old Jewish guy, a retired GM ex and some poor slob that worked a whole lot of overtime to feel on those boobies! ( hell to the naaaaaw man!)

She had been at this awhile (who writes letters these days?) They all love her, it was a joy just to get a little bit of her loving ( I wanna puke! Thinking about it) These lonely desperate souls!

Why do we as men lose out minds and money over a pretty face?

I think the Jewish guy was the most interesting, he sent her love/mentoring letters. I think the world of you and oh by the way this is how you read a P&L, yeah, he was that type of dude.

He was also the most prolific, sugar daddy number two was a boring fuck, he NEEDED money to get laid. His letters put me to sleep, uninspired and no passion, did he fuck by the numbers 1, 2, 3-1,2,3-1,2,3 I should have kept those letter and sold them as sleep aids.

Sugar daddy number three was a hard working union man that got tons of overtime, it took him a lot to get to those panties, oddly enough he seem to be her favorite ( he was local, the other two were not) they did a lot of stuff together.

Maybe he was laying the pipe right and paying the piper, stranger shit has happened. Remember Fredrick Douglas Damn this chick had the life!

Q&A with Glendon Cameron a

Storage Auction Addict!

Q&A with Glendon Cameron a Storage Auction Addict! by CJ

Imagine if you could invest $1 and make $62,000.

Welcome to Glendon Cameron’s world. Cameron is a self-proclaimed self storage auction addict who turned his addiction into an extremely profitable business.

Cameron, who lives in Atlanta, started attending storage auctions in 2002, and as he puts it, he “got the bug” right away. He started part-time and then made buying abandoned storage units his full-time job, buying as many as 50 units a week.

Cameron quit the auction game last year and turned his attention to educating others on what it takes to make money buying and selling other people’s stuff. Heblogs and has YouTube videos about his odd (and often ridiculously funny) experiences. He also teaches webinars, and wrote a book, Making Money A-Z With Self Storage Auctions.

In our Q&A with Cameron, he shares some of his more interesting experiences (that could be the premise of a good sitcom) and what it takes to make it in the storage auction biz.

Q: What made you start going to self storage auctions?

A: It’s kind of funny. I used to own a contract furniture business, and I had a lot of customers who wanted residential furniture. So I went out to a few estate sales for one of my customers to really round out her reception area the way she wanted it. At the end of the project, I had a lot of stuff left over.

So I had this huge garage sale and it was amazing, we made $1,300 in like four hours. So I kind of got hooked and started looking for a way to buy used merchandise because people were crazy about it, and I started going to storage auctions.

Q: What made you decide that you could turn storage auctions into your own business?

A: Initially, it was really part time. It was fun, and it was more about treasure hunting than actually the profit margin. The money was nice. The money was great. It’s the best part-time job I’ve ever had in my life, but you never know what you’re going to find. You open up a box, and there’s a pocket watch. You open up a box, and there’s a diamond ring. You open up a box, and there’s a bag of broken gold. It was always something pretty much every unit, unless the unit was total garbage.

Q: How many auctions a year would you go to?

A: I’m a nerd, so I sat down from the beginning and mapped out where all the auctions were. I probably went to anywhere from nine to 15 auctions a week, probably 300 to 400 auctions a year.

Q: How many did you actually purchase?

A: In the beginning, probably buying anywhere from three to five per week, and when we had the merger operation, 25 to 50 a month, depending on what our needs were and what we had or didn’t need. I know one month, it was crazy, I bought 63. That’s the most I’ve ever bought in one month.

Q: How many people did you have working for you?

A: Initially, the first year I had a partner and we did everything together the first year. After that, it just became really overwhelming and I had to hire people. I pretty much outsourced loading and outsourced a lot of stuff, but actual on the payroll employees, two, and everything else was outsourced.

Q: How do you know when you want to win a unit?

A: We have an operation and we have a lot of different clients, so there are certain things we are looking for. It just depends on what you see when the door goes up. I’ll give you an example: let’s say it’s a tool unit. We didn’t have a lot of people in the beginning that were really crazy about tools. So even though it was a really good unit, I wouldn’t buy it, because that wasn’t my customer base.

It just depends what was in there, and you can see the clues, but until you get in there and you start pulling it out, you really don’t know if you have a great unit or not.

Q: What are the keys to winning a storage auction?

A: Oh man. There’s several. Be there. It depends on how much money you have. There’s not one key. The best unit I ever got cost me $1, and I made $62,000, and there was a crowd there. It’s wild.

I have people who come to my webinar, and they’re like, ‘Well, I need a lot of money.’ I say at some point, you will, but if you’re willing to do the groundwork, you can make decent money until you get your operating capital to a certain level. Because I’ve bought units ridiculously cheap – $10 or $20 – and I’ve made anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000. I think one of the reasons I was so successful with it was I bought a lot of rooms. A lot every month. The numbers were in my favor.

Q: What was in that $1 unit?

A: He was a developer, an old-time Atlanta developer. And I don’t think he put the stuff in there, I think his kids put it in there, because it was from his estate. And it was a safe, an old safe, and the safe you could tell was probably 1940s or 1950, and there was a brass bed, a roll-top desk and a few boxes with papers and stuff. The safe had a proof Krugerrand, a diamond necklace, several really distinct type pieces of jewelry, three guns (a Beretta, Colt 45 and a Dillinger), some old coins, Morgan silver dollars, a bunch of Kennedy silver dollars, a Walking Liberty.

I mean the coins got 10 grand – not counting the Krugerrand – the coins got 10 grand by themselves. And I could have made more if I was wiser, because I sold them at a coin store. Three years later, I looked up some of that stuff, and if I knew what I was doing, I probably could have made $20,000 off those coins.

But the thing is, I rationale that it cost me $1. So it’s not like I lost. That’s one of the things that I speak about, because a lot of people have what I call holditis. They’ll wait to get that right price, but sometimes that can be kind of short-sighted, because if you paid only $300, and you can make a $1,000 on a unit in a week, why not? Each day that you hold onto it, you’re losing money, because you have to store it, you’ve got to move it – depending on what your operation is.

Q: What’s the most you’ve ever spent to win an auction?

A: I bought two units from a nice estate for $6,200 for the both of them. Now I wasn’t at this auction, but I know a guy – we used to be friends – he paid $13,000.

Q: How much of a profit would you make per year?

A: My profit margin was 72 to 78 percent. The expenses were running 20 to 25 percent. It was huge compared to traditional businesses; most traditional businesses, they’ll do single-digit profit margin – maybe 12 percent. Thirty percent is considered outrageous – say a Fortune 500 company – so the market was pretty good. It was great. It allowed me to not have to work for a year when I got the book written. I was just living on savings, and I don’t know too many jobs where I could save that type of money.

Q: What’s the most expensive item you’ve ever come across in a unit?

A: The unit with Herman Miller chairs. They’re 800 bucks. Back then they were going for $1,200, and I bought a unit that had 50 of them in there.

Q: Most interesting unit you ever purchased?

A: I’d say that was probably the Madam. I had no idea. If these guys knew what kind of information she had on them, I think they would reconsider. If she wanted to nail them to the wall, she could have. She had that much information, just stuff that you would not think would happen in that type of transaction.

I have never done that type of stuff, but I was just amazed. And she was a little bit of a nutcase. I think she had psychological issues and there was some other stuff. She didn’t have a really good relationship with her mother. She was a beautiful girl. That was the strange thing about it. Her thing was she liked a lot of attention and she liked a lot of money, and I think it was borderline psychotic. I don’t think one man could have given her as much attention as she craved.

If she’s not the most interesting one, she’s top 10. It’s hard. There are so many, but a lot them are really, really interesting. I found a lot of units where you get in there and there’s six boxes, a few pieces of furniture and that’s it – not too much interest there. But I’ve gotten a lot where their whole life story was in there. But I’m going to say the Madam.

Q: Have these auctions become more popular in recent years?

A: Every year more and more people come out and last year was probably the biggest increase. It was economy-driven. People were looking for other sources of income, so people started digging, and going forward, I think this is pretty much going to explode. There’s three reality shows coming on this fall or at some point this year. I fully expect my book sells to skyrocket, once that first show hits. People will go around and start looking and they’ll find me.

Q: What made you decide to go into the teaching/advising business and get out of the auction business?

A: I’ve always had this ambition to be a writer, and I did a little research and fiction is really hard right now. Publishing companies are not giving out the advances they used to give out. Several friends are writers, well-known writers, and they used to get the nice advances. They’re not getting that anymore. Between Amazon and WalMart, they’re really, really making it hard for a writer to make a full-time living.

I looked at business books, and those guys are getting great advances, and they were still doing pretty well. Because someone that buys a business book or a motivation book, they’re looking to make money or get motivated to make money. It doesn’t matter how bad the economy is, people are going to buy those books. So I decided to go with the nonfiction business stuff first and write the fiction stuff later. I was a little bit taken aback by some of the emails I get and all the attention. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of starting that project. I did my first YouTube video Aug. 3 last year, and it’s picking up. Every week I’m selling more and more eBooks. I’m selling more books, so the word is getting out.

I think in the next two to three years, this is going to skyrocket, because I have a lot of students across the country. There are people in markets where they have no competition. I have one guy – I can’t tell you where he is – but he is the only game in town and he went from no money to pretty much $8,000 to $10,000 a month net profit within six months. He bought the book and then once he started making the money, he took the webinar.

It’s not for everyone. It’s not easy and it’s a lot of hard work, but if you put in your time and money into it, you can make money. How much? It depends on a lot. It depends on what city you are in. It depends on your access to auctions. I’ve met guys from California who are just going crazy. There’s like an auction somewhere in California nearly every day – six days a week and sometimes they have them on Sunday.

I think it’s going to be a growth industry. There’s about 56,000 storage facilities across the United States. If each one of those facilities had two or three rooms a month every month, that’s like 180,000 auctions across the country. Some places are going to have more; some places are going to have none, but we’re talking millions of rooms that go up for auction every year. And no one really knows about it. It’s such a niche, cottage industry. That’s a lot of stuff being sold every year.

http://www.storagefront.com/therentersbent/qa-with-glendon-cameron-a-storage-auction-addict

Buy my ebook! -Making Money A-Z with Self Storage Unit Auctions

This sad episode in my storage auction career occurred in the middle of year two that I was in the business. I met “Sam” one day when I was looking for a store front. We were paying a lot of booth rent and it was time for a change. Either you are growing or dying, there really is no way around this in life.

On that warm afternoon I first met the devil, he was affable and humble – read desperate. Sam was from Armenia, 6’ 2 with a thick accent, round horn rimmed glasses, a shock of white/grey hair (think Heat Miser) with Oscar the Grouch eyebrows that got bushier every time I saw him. He had that nutty professor look and a hint of smile (later learned he was a daily drinker) initially I was deceived by his charm and Bible toting ways. We all were.

I swear more evil people adroitly handle the Bible than innocent folks; this dude had more skeletons than a Catholic priest.

At the time he was renting space from two women that partnered up on a small collectible store. Sam made bookcases and was quite adept in woodworking. He made a quality product and the price was nice.  He did have some positive traits as fleeting as they were.

He just was not selling enough book cases, he needed more space and that was an issue. He did not have the funds at the time to rent the space I looked over the day that I met him.

We hit it off and I thought at the time he was a likable guy (note I know he was Russian but his ass behaved like a Nazi!) I went to find the property manager to inquire on what kind of deal we could get on the space.

(She is a story within herself) the landlord had a store at the end of the plaza, in fact she had several stores in the plaza one spot would have been perfect for us but the landlord said she would keep it the way it was. Later on this would become a huge point of contention….keep reading. Burned my buttons man!

I mulled it over with my partner, at the time we had over 15 booths in a local Flea Market and I was thinking we might as well get our own spot. The flea market was great; however there were a few issues that kept irking me, access, days of operation and folks stealing my customers.

I drove most of our traffic to the spot via a lot of marketing and poaching our customers was the game of the day at the flea market. I spent a great deal of time drumming up business and it was pissing me off in a wet way that I was being taken left and right. Marketing is not easy and having your respondent’s money go to other folks pockets was enough to make you want to slap someone!

We went back and forth with the landlord over the rent and we finally got it to where it was less than the booth rent. During the time I fell into a brain cramp coma (I really thought we would transition all of that stuff in a month) when I woke up 6 MONTHS later from my optimism induced comma, we had finally moved out of the flea market.  I keep buying and since we had more space I got more stuff! We were very busy during the transition, I learned how not to move a store on 101!

I really enjoyed the having both places for a hot second, but it proved to be a logistical nightmare and since we were in the store more than the flea market our shrinkage jumped 38%!  If you are selling retail you are going to have losses, it is just part of the game. There is no telling how much money we lost!

Between buying units, loading units, selling on eBay, selling on craigslist and working 16 hours a day things fell through the cracks. One of those evil things was Sam, he never liked the fact that we moved in and got our own space before he did. I kinda felt the hate, but I chalked it up to be stressed…he was a really nice guy right?

We moved in and started making money immediately and Sam took note of every customer and was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too interested in our business model. One day I am coming in with a load and I notice Sam is in the spot that I originally wanted!

He had half the damn space full of book cases and new furniture!

I sat in my truck for a moment stunned, I don’t remember how I got to the landlord’s store I was in her face asking what the deal-lee-o was. She looked at me really calmly and said she changed her mind.

I know I am black but she could see me turning several shades of red, I begged and pleaded with this woman for that spot, it was bigger and wide open.  Her cool demeanor warmed up and she started stammering. I was paying this old heffer serous loot every month!

She said he kept asking, so did I! Hmmm did he slap her upside the head with his dick, Lord knows it had been a few decades since she seen one (this would not be beyond him, more on that later) as I walked back to my truck he was just smiling.

I called my partner and she was like WTF!!! It was downhill after that. Everything we would do, he would do, we put stuff outside and he would put stuff outside. It got downright juvenile. Sam was very territorial; we all had three parking spots in front of our store fronts, which is where I put the furniture and other attention drawing items.

One day Sam got a wild hair up his ass, he came out with tape measure and some paper. He looked like a mad scientist, walking and speaking under his breath.  He measured his store front and the side walk.  Up and down, then he measure out store front.  Then he went down the plaza measuring each spot. After a good hour of this nonsense he comes over to me,  I was with a customer that just brought a bedroom set. Sometimes his rudeness knew no limits, Sam was a true case of Dr Jekyll Mr. Hyde.

“I am not happy!”  I shot him a cold look and raise my hand and said “ In a minute fool, go get a cookie” I took the ladies money and made a call to have her items delivered she was looking at him and I was looking at him ( he was a little tipsy) she took her receipt and  thanked me  quickly heading to her car ( she was pretty and he was undressing her, stitch by stitch  she knew it I knew it and he did not give a damn) after she drove off, he waved  to her. The  balls on this mofo were the size of NBA regulation basketballs.

He quickly turned to me (Mr. Hyde was back) “I am not happy, you are using one of my parking spaces” I laughed at him and walked off, later on the landlord comes down and says it is true (I never ever wanted to hit a elderly woman, but my hand was twitching like I had the DTs) my partner looked at me and I looked at her and we shook out heads.

We were not long for that world…..the next day I started looking for another spot. He was tripping and I was truly salty about not getting that larger spot. I would have kept the first one and rented the bigger space, more space more money all of the way around for all involved, I just did not get it why she let him move in and not us in that shop, oh well some things will always remained a mystery.

However before we left, all types of madness ensued! Thus, the emergence of the parking lot war! This fool would get there early and fill up all of the spots, totally crowding the line to our newly reduced outdoor display area.  He made a habit of sitting outside like some drunken sentry, he truly though he had a fiefdom!

Things got so bad between us,  that Code Enforcement Officer came over and told all of us no one could put anything outside! I smiled and began putting the stuff back in our store; we did quite a bit of marketing so the impact would be minimal.

Sam began to bicker with the Code Enforcement Officer and she was about to give him a ticket and he just stopped yelling in mid sentence and walked off (he was unpredictable like that) word to the wise Code Enforcement Officers have a lot of power and some even carry weapons!

The next day the fool developed a new wrinkle in his sheet of evil, a lady that saw a bedroom set on Craigslist just came by, some call, some just show up, you never know when you post the address. I was outside taking to the mechanic dude next door.

“Excuse me is this place with the bedroom set I saw online?” Sam grabbed her hand, with both of his hands , shook her hands hard and said “I have what you need!”  She looked very uncomfortable; scared may be a better word.

As he was escorting her in his store, she saw the set in our window, quickly disengaging herself (he was still holding her hand) from him she came over to me shooting him a look. “What is with that guy?” she asked “Oh he is an asshole that is his problem” I said loud enough for him to take it in. She pulled herself together, looked art me and whispered “I agree” I gave the poor lady a deal because he spooked her a little.

In a fit of disgust and total contempt I parked in “the” parking spot the very next day, fools left unattended grow even more foolishness, I term it the fool weed syndrome, if you don’t clip the weed it will choke you out!  I knew it would piss him off, Humpty (  Ford E 250) was blocking a very large percentage of his shop window. You want to steal my customers I am going to try to block yours!

He comes out of his store screaming like a manic “Move your van! Now! ” I walked off , the parking lot is now for parking, screw him. Moments later a DeKalb Police Officer is pulling in the parking lot with lights on, a second later another cop pulls in the plaza, in minutes there were two officers looking for me!

This ass wipe called the cops! I go out to talk to them; the tall guy looks at me “are you Glendon Cameron?”   His hand on his gun and the second cop took a defensive posture, also placing his hand to his sidearm.  “Yes I am, what this is about?” at this juncture Sam has come out and is watching. Looking crazier than usual “We got a call about an assault” my ears were ringing “Assault? Who? Where” I am asking over and over  “I did not lay a hand on anyone!”

Now Sam is bold, he comes over “He parked in front of my store!” Both cops look at Sam with oh we have driven up on some bullshit etched over their faces. The tall cop was not happy “Sir we were called about an assault did you make that call?” he was looking more and more pissed and all the attention was on Sam.  Happy visions of them arresting his dumbass danced in my head.

Fool was way smarter than I wanted to give him credit for, his accent thickened, verb subject agreement went out of the window. Suddenly he reached levels of communication difficulty never witness before.  “ah, yes I called he is tres-pausing on my property, his van there, wrong place, he move need”   this mofo has become Yoda! My eyes are rolling, the cop is clearly pissed and this mofo is about to get away with some foul ish!

The cop calms down (DAMN!) and explains there was no crime and I could park anywhere on the property since I was also a tenant. “He big guy, want no trouble” I swear and walk back in the store. The police leave but I come in, way in to a whole new way of thinking..

It’s on!

After that day I went from reacting to contriving, from listening to asking and oh the dirt that I dug up on this mofo, he had to be dealt with.  One lady accused him of grabbing her breast (why she did not press charges I do not know) he was cheating on his wife and he had a married woman “backing” him financially nope her husband did not know until I told him! More than likely he was boning her also, Sam got around. A foreign accent will open many legs believe that!

Second nail in his coffin was that he did not have a business license. My partner wrote a scathing letter to DeKalb County letting them know, Code Enforcement Officer came, gave him a ticket and told him to shut it down.

Do you think this stopped Sam? Of course not, he would wait until after 4PM and the weekends, when the Code Enforcement Office was off. One day I saw the cop that answered his bogus call and told him the deal (Yep! I was snitch believe that!) When he called the man on me it was over!  I have never had the level of hate for another human being as I did for this guy!

Officer friendly came by on a Saturday and saw that he was indeed open without a license.

It was an absolutely beautiful scene to witness, the same Office that wanted to haul me away for assault was yelling at Sam “SHUT IT DOWN NOW OR I WILL ARREST YOUR ASS!!!”

Sam just wanted to cry, there was a lady there with cash in her hand for a bedroom set. Looking like what the hell did I walk into? The cop was not playing; there was no way for him to wiggle out of this tight situation he now found himself in. The lady was getting ready to leave.

I went over and asked her what she needed. She had just moved in a new house and needed furniture for the whole place. “I sell used stuff but your dollar will go far with me “she shrugged “Show me what you got” As soon as she got to our window “Ooooooo your stuff is nice!”  She cooed!

I turned to Sam and smiled like the ass I was, let me check hmmm…. do I feel guilty? Nope! Not even now!  He deserved every bit of the humiliation he was experiencing. Sam was locking up his place, the officer was in his car watching Sam like the con he was!  (I sold her $1800.00 worth of stuff; it was one of the sweetest sales of my life! CHA-CHING!!!! )

Put the Cops on Sam fifty five cents in gas. Sold two bedroom sets, dining room set, leather sofa set, and gads of accessories $1800.00 The look on Sam’s face as he watched the lady load her SUV PRICELESS!!!

We moved the next week, it got back to us a few months later that Sam also moved, his evil butt  was up to his drunken eyeballs in trouble. He was fined for operating a business with no license and he lost a lot of money while he was closed.

My partner wrote letters to everyone she could think of! This is why they threw the book at him, due to my partner’s letter writing campaign they made an example of him.

Now the sweet part, he grabbed the wrong woman, she called the cops, he was charged, convicted and deported!  The judge told him someone with copious disregard for the law did not deserved to be in the country! Never pissed off someone from the Bronx!

I love a happy ending!

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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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I was having lunch the other day and there was this segment on CNN about an entrepreneur who could not a get a business loan for expanding his business because of some dings on his personal credit. The dings have been there for a while and have never halted any loan application before the latest and greatest recession since the Great Depression.

I sat at my table shaking my head, he only needs one hundred thousand dollars, and here is someone who is running a successful business, making money that does not know the first thing about business credit.

No, I am not saying a hundred grand is chump change, what I am saying is with his cash flow this is an easy deal. He has a staff of twenty even at minimum wage that is twenty five to thirty thousand a month on payroll, payroll taxes, then the next beast is rent and then food, so this guy in the one hundred thousand dollar a month or more in revenues, thus a million dollar plus a year business.

He has the income to move forward with the loan, it is the new and ultra strict underwriting standards that are tripping him up…and a lack of knowledge. He could get four LOC for twenty five thousand each there are many ways to skin this cat! This is a great example of how you new to plan for your capital needs well in advance; the worst absolute time to apply for money is when you really, really, really need it! Just like dogs smell fear, bankers smell desperation, like thick funky cologne that you poured way too much over your head.

He owns a restaurant which means he takes credit cards,  did you know you can get merchant account loan up to two hundred and fifty thousand? Yes, the interest rate is high, but when your back is against the wall an option is better than no option! There is on Deck Capital who can do the loan bases on his case flow. I tried to Google him and get the information to him to no avail.

We as entrepreneurs tend to block out anything that is not related to the business, even some things for the business. When people think of business credit the visual is a venture capitalist, angel or bank loan officer, this is part of it, but there is so much more! With time and a plan you can get a thick business credit profile where you can get everything up to commercial property, they will always look at the FICOs of the owner if the business is small or less than ten years of business operations. Doesn’t be this guy; start building your business credit profile right now!