Our First Storage Auctions Attended & Unit Won in 2013

We got lost Thursday looking for the storage auctions and only caught tail end. Friday we went to a bunch of them. I believe in all we saw 33 units (actually about 29 some got paid up and were taken off list). Many were dud units, one when opened was actually EMPTY! Some only had 1 box that looked like stuff people just didn't feel like throwing away.
This made me think about something though - if you ever rent a storage unit - when you leave make sure you take EVERYTHING don't leave junk behind because you might have something with info on it like SS # or something and even though people are SUPPOSED to return things like that to the office after they win a unit, who is to say that everyone does? What you think will go into a dumpster might just get auctioned off..... That's what it got me thinking about .

Then a bunch we knew people were just bidding us up so we didn't play the game. Figured okay you want it for that much go ahead and try to make money on it LOL.
Second half of day I stayed home and John went by himself. He almost had a real good one but we had given ourselves a budget and only brought that much cash with him (thats how you keep within your budget no matter what lol). This time we were wishing we had brought an extra hundred on top of budget - like a just in case their is an awesome one kinda spare money but oh well.

At the last facility he did wind up winning a unit. Paid about $50 more than he was wanting to (but still well within budget). So now after taxes and all we have $351.00 invested in this unit. Unfortunately it was seriously missing that WOW factor ha ha ha.
We did some math though and it will probably take the vintage poker table (after we refurbish top which is not hard), and the leather chair & ottoman plus maybe the Hammock we found to break even. Then we will make a little profit from a couple telescopes, some bric & brac, and some plush for Halloween and Motorcycle/Biker plush Teddy Bears etc. So we MIGHT be able to at least double on this one, but we were not overly thrilled with it. They can't all be amazing though! Hopefully next time.

Other things we found in the unit: Books that were just too dirty to be anything but garbage, a ton of Christmas decorations most just dollar store or homemade and not good homemade, an entertainment center (we can resell that probably for 50.00), a long wood table but its missing its glass pieces, not sure what we will do with that yet. Some electric tools we have to test still also were in there. We have a small pile of old Christmas cards, some paperwork etc. with personal info we are going to hand into the office their on Monday so they can return to the previous owners.

Oh I almost forgot there was this neat little chair in there. It is a folding chair and is obviously vintage. We just took some quick photos of it. It has a metal tag/plate that has two little nails/tacs to hold it onto back of the chair but the writing is oriental so we need to figure it out still. It looks like a child size chair. The blue flip flop is there to show size its a womans size 6 or 7 shoe. The other picture has my husbands large McDonalds drink.

 

 

 I like the chair, but not sure if it has any value. As of right now all we know is it is cute and in good shape other than needing a little cleaning/dusting and some of the screws/nails are a little rusted on the heads from age.


Sometimes you find things in units that just don't go together. This unit was one of those kind of units. There was a glass pipe in there wrapped in a towel (certainly some type of drug paraphernalia) and also in the unit was a bunch of Jehovah Witness materials, books etc. These two things just didn't seem to be a combo that made sense to me. Certainly not the strangest combo we have found, but one to make you go hmmmm and scratch your head a little.

Well now time to turn this unit around and see if we can manage to at least double the money. Looking forward to the next auctions and hopefully will have lots of wonderful finds to write about.