Posted on 09/26/2011 9:14:30 AM PDT by ExTxMarine
A&E's "Storage Wars," a show about people who bid on the contents of abandoned storage lockers, had its second season premiere this summer to 5.1 million viewers. It's the HIGHEST RATED show in the network's history.
Tru TV's nearly identical "Storage Hunters" has become a breakout hit - ALMOST as big of a hit as Spike's nearly identical "Auction Hunters."
That's right. There are three DIFFERENT shows on TV about STORAGE LOCKERS.
Reality TV is frequently trashy, but never before has it featured so much actual trash.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
My wife and I like Barry the most. He is so laid-back compared to the other buyers. If he gets the unit, he gets the unit; if not, oh well, I will get another one.
I know someone who has owned a storage building for about 15 years. They are a great business to own. There is very little maintainence. Just a small electric bill. His units are all unheated. If someone doesn’t pay the rent, you auction off their unit.
He gave me the scoop on this long ago. Most of the auctioned items end up in the trash, Salvation Army or the Flea Market. OCCASIONALLY, there is a nice find.
Barry seems to only do the lockers to buy stuff that gives him an excuse to go spend time with old friends, and his old friends seem to include most of the oddest people in LA. And every once in a while he makes money. Definitely somebody with his priorities lined up.
yep - gotta like Barry
Barry is one of those people that’s why Thom Beers is so successful. He just makes good TV. Barry sitting in his kitchen reading and reacting to the newspaper would be fun to watch. Most of Thom’s shows, and all of the successful ones, revolve around the Barrys of the world.
Yep. down here in my little rural town, we have two auctioneers and about six “regular” buyers. There are always about a dozen amateurs and a couple of “Storage Wars” wanna-be’s who will typically out bid everyone - way over pricing the units.
The one or two times we have gone and participated, I asked the auctioneer who the regular buyers were. Then I watched them and stayed close to them (until I reached my limit).
My Father-in-Law has a storage problem. Pays over $300 a month to store items pulled out of his old dentist office years ago. Things like old dental chairs, dental lights, old office machines, sinks, old furniture, old Holiday decorations Plans on selling it someday but we know he never will. One, its all old tech, and two, he can’t bring him self to it because he is a hoarder. That $300 times how many months comes out to a boat load of cash he throwing away. It will come down to us kids selling it to the highest bidder.
The basement of his house is even worse. You’ll finds 1960s and 70s stereos and TVs, VHS and Beta players, pin ball machines, slot machines, a pool table, his kids toys and books from the 70s, just about anything most people would have sold or gave away over the years, he has kept. Some of it valuable to a collector, other stuff completely worthless. And it’s stacked from floor to ceiling with narrow passageways to get through. It gives us nightmares knowing we will have to find a buyer someday. We’ll end up pulling out the items we want to keep, like those slot machines, and high bidder takes the rest.
I’m surprised at the people who watch it on TV and decide to try. Maybe I just watch TV differently, the “lesson” I learn from the show is that if you don’t have a thrift store (tons of work) or go to all the local swap meets (tons of work) or know collectors of just about everything (tons of work in the past) you’re gonna wind up with a whole bunch of junk. I’d heard about this stuff before, thought it would be more effort than I’m willing to put in, watched the show and found out it’s EVEN MORE effort than I thought. And yet apparently thousands of folks all over the country have watched these shows and said “hell I can do that”. Nice for the auctioneers and locker owners I suppose, rough for the buyers until all this new blood goes broke and get to get all this stuff next time around.
Regarding dental equipment:
There will be no bidder. **You** will pay big time to have it hauled away....And, good luck finding someone who will take the x-ray head.
As the show says, these are the ones worth showing. Nine lockers of junk for that good number ten.
One locker I bid on was full of top quality furniture including a dining room table that would sell for several thousand dollars new. But, yes, that is the exception.
I used a locker until I decided the rent was going to equal the value of the stuff stored and then I sold or gave away the stuff. But walk away and leave a mess? No, I don’t do that.
She is a careless sort of person with a casual attitude toward property, her own and that which belongs to other people.
I hope whoever got what was in her units enjoyed and treasured it. Goodness knows, she did not.
I’ve never once seen a “family photo album” pulled out of these lockers. Could it happen? “Yeeeeepp!!” (for those who have seen the show)
Is the author of thie piece twelve years old?
I make my living reselling things I buy at estate (not storage) auctions, and this is my job. There are no actual jobs in this ecomony, so you're more or less forced to create your own job. I buy and sell "parts of people's LIFE" every day without a scond thought.
Well - you have correctly identified him as a hoarder. However, since he is a retired ‘professional’ he’ll never admit to having a problem.
If his house ever becomes a safety hazard - he will probably just rent another storage unit.
Why don’t you ask him if you can have his ‘stuff’ and quietly dispose of it?
The wife and I will do swap meets and flea markets, so we will collect items, put our old clothes together and then once we have enough, we will open a table or two at the local flea market.
I had a lady who lived next door to me when country dancing/line dancing was really popular a few years back. Her “business” was going to yard sales EVERY SINGLE DAY! She purchased women’s cowboy jeans and western shirts. She said she never paid more than $6 an item. She came home and dry cleaned, pressed and then sold them at the local flea market. She said she never SOLD for less than $18! She was pulling down $60K a year and that was ALL she did!
That is when we started doing it on the side and you can make some pretty good money.
American ingenuity!!!
Can we put our politicians in a storage unit and forget them?
That is pretty impressive. I’m just too lazy for it. Of course I got lucky, I stumbled into the software industry, and into a well established company that’s not on the bleeding edge, where I make higher than the national average and sit at a desk all day mostly playing on the net, getting some stuff out, more than my co-workers, and I haven’t worked over time in years. I didn’t used to be so lazy, but I hit a level in life where I was more financially comfortable than I ever dreamed and decided that was good enough. Now my aspirations mostly revolve around finishing reading books and going to concerts. I think the year I had to burn through epic vacation time (took a week off every month) killed my life motivation.
There are a lot of people that do this with used books. Buy them for $.25 at garage sales and sell them for $2-4 on Amazon or elsewhere. It is an all cash business too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.