Brian's Magical Mystery $10 Unit

One day, for whatever reason, Brian went to auction without me (SHAME ON HIM) --  although, truth be told, I think I might have elected to sleep late that particular day.  Anyways, he went to a facility near New Orleans East that we NEVER go to, but he bought this unit for $10.

I was a little scared to see it, but I trust him, and ultimately, for $10-- can you really go wrong?

This is what the unit looked like:

It seemed as if the previous owners had pillaged through and left only what they couldn't fit in their car--- there were only a few items, and a table and chairs, as well as one or two rubbermaid containers- but even the totes along were worth $10

Here's another angle.  It was a very awkward corner unit, which is probably why no one wanted to deal with it (We had to do some crazy things to that table to get it to fit through that door),  so here's another angle.  Notice the dollhouse hiding in the corner. 

Yet another view of the inside of the unit:

Three of the chairs were in amazing shape.  The wood was great, and the cushions were slightly stained but easily recovered.   The fourth chair was in pieces, but at least we had all the pieces and it would glue back together easily.  We kept everything.

If you look closely towards the right of the picture, you can see the broken chair:

Here's another one of the broken chair:

The dollhouse, upon further examination was in slightly rough shape, but was a Fisher Price Lovin' Family Playhouse that had ALL of the pieces with it, including all of the added on accessories.  Total original retail on it was around $150.   I believe we let it go at a garage-sale for in the $30 range.  So that ONE item doubled or tripled our profit on the locker.

The other side / inside of the doll house:   Is it dollhouse or doll house?  At this point with the way the wind is howling, we're LUCKY to be INSIDE a house at all.

The totes were mainly ladies and children's clothing, but probably another $10-$20 in merchandise.

Some purses and easter baskets.  Another couple of dollars.

Hello Kitty, brand new with tags, is always a good seller.  I think we sold this one for $10.

So, we quadrupled our money and then some on just the little items, and then we ended up selling the table and chairs to a very nice lady on craigslist (although, admittedly, I wish I wouldn't have because I lost my own kitchen table just a week or two later) -- LONG STORY.     But, I believe we sold it for about $125--  great deal for her on a solid wood table, and  great deal for us.

Cost of the unit: $10

Total profit:  $175

Not bad at all!  

As a follow-up, the girl we sold the table to was kind enough to send me a message with the picture of how the table looked, restored, in her house.    Neither Brian or I are really big "green" people (nor are we BIG, GREEN, people!)   but we have come to realize lately, especially with dealing with the Los Angeles folks, that storage units are really a great way to recycle--  otherwise stuff would end up in the garbage, and you're finding new uses for things and also letting families and younger people or people down on their luck make a good economical choice by purchasing something used for cheaper as opposed to having to break the bank to pay full retail.  Win win win.

And sorry, having MAJOR technical difficulties right now and NO cell phone service, so I was forced to take a picture of my cell phone to show you this picture of the table the girl sent me.  The caption says "Thanks Rebecca, I cleaned it all up!"

And that's why they call us Storage Heroes!

Great job, Brian!  Now I have to find a $10 unit that's JUST as good so we can compare!

Until next time,

We bring the fun to auction,

Storage Heroes

eBay store!

Okay, so we know several months ago, we were all "%&^* eBay"  but we've actually come to an agreement with them (for now), and we're building up and doing quite well (100 listings and 20 feedback y'all!) .... and it's going great!  (Knock on wood).

So... we opened a store.

No!  Not that kind of store!  A nice, classy store.  Or at least 90% classy.

Here's the link:  http://stores.ebay.com/storagehero/

Check back often and buy buy buy!    

And we'll have a ton more up as soon as we can figure out how to be able to list more than 100 items a month!

We bring the fun to auction,

Storage Heroes

Hotel Hell, check in time now, check out time NEVER!

Hey y'all!   Rebecca here.  It's been awhile and we've been entirely too positive and feel-good lately, so here's a little rant:

We are NEVER having private appointments at our warehouse again.  Ever, ever, ever.   There have been quite a few occasions recently where we've gone out of our way to meet with people and based on whatever misunderstanding about what it is that we had or what it is that they were willing to spend-- we were screwed-- but there were just enough (2 or 3) times where we had successful meetings for tons of purchases that we were willing to overlook the tons of bad times for the few good.

NEVER AGAIN.

The other day we were having a garage sale at the home we've been having garage sales at, seemingly every weekend, because we keep getting rained out, and these two older ladies pull up at 2pm on Sunday for a sale that was supposed to only be Saturday that we moved to Sunday that was supposed to close at noon, per all advertisements.  Yet they show up on Sunday at 2 and wonder why everything is picked up?   That should have given us our first clue.  While Brian ignored them completely and finished the last minute details of packing up (we had already been tearing down and packing up for over an hour without any customer in that time frame at all), I answered their ridiculous questions.     We didn't have any of the items they were looking for in the home (mainly things for kids and random other items), but they did mention they needed fabric.    We still have 12-20 boxes of fabric from the "Sew Good" unit,  so I let her know that we had it, and that most of it was remnants and that there was a variety of different fabrics.   One lady wanted fabric for children, which the remnants are PERFECT for (appliques or john johns or whatever), and the other lady mentioned that she wanted satin.  I told her I have satin in all different colors,  mostly remnants, but that we did have several yards of some colors and I did have a few bolts of different fabric.  She asked how cheap, I told her 25-50 cents a yard, and maybe $1-$2 a yard on specialty fabrics.   That's very reasonable, and she agreed.

APPOINTMENT FROM HELL.

We set an appointment for today at 11:15.   She's bringing her friend, the same lady from the other day, and they're going to meet me separately.  Fine.  I  arrive right at 11:15, so does her friend, but she's a few minutes late.  I open the warehouse and turn on the lights and A/C and offer the other lady a chance to start looking but apparently she's afraid of going into the warehouse alone with me so she waits for her friend.  Minutes wasted for sure.

GOOD USE OF MY TIME?

Just so you know, I had woken up super early this morning (6:30, which is a miracle for me) after having been up super late last night.  I had so many things to do, so wanted to make sure I got everything done in time.  I had spent the morning at Performance, helping out there, and shipping items on eBay (we're averaging about 8 shipments a day now, which I think is pretty good) and listing other items.  We're not talking $1-2 items, we're talking items worth hundreds.   So I was making pretty good headway on some important work.      And then I realized I had to get to my appointment.

DON'T RUSH, NOW.

I should have taken my sweet time getting there, but I didn't, I arrived right on time, along with the friend (let's call her Thing 2), and Thing 1 is now there, a few minutes late.  We go into the warehouse and I immediately see an upturned snotty look on both of their faces.    It always cracks me up when people enter our warehouse and say things like "It's hot in here"  or "there is a mosquito!"  or "OMG, I got dirt on my blouse!"  -- all of these things were uttered by our customers from hell, and we've heard them before.  It's kind of funny, because you can always tell how much the peole are going to spend by these little remarks.  It's always the ones who are the most problematic that are the ones that are willing to spend the least.  The way I figure it, I don't mind putting up with a Paris Hilton type, her chihuahua, entourage, and attitude-- because at least her daddy is worth millions.  Why are you acting like a Queen in your flip flops and jean capris?   But I digress.   The other hilarious thing about these comments, is like, dude,  It's a WAREHOUSE.  I did not invite you to my upscale retail store on Magazine street.  I did not invite you to my Palace in Versailles.  I invited you to my WAREHOUSE, that is NOT OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC because of how friggin' special you are.   Also because you told me you were bringing $100 cash and a checkbook.  But moreso because of that last part.

I WOULD HAVE RATHERED PARIS-- AT LEAST I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN TO SEE A PUPPY.

But no, you didn't bring a chihuahua in a little tutu, you brought me Thing 2, a sweet old lady, but bat shit crazy and borderline senile.   I listened THREE times as you told her you were only looking for "WHITE SATIN" - a surprise to me, too.   We'll get to that in a second.   Some people have common sense, some don't.  Some shouldn't be allowed on the street unsupervised.  Thing 2 falls into that last category.  These women are watching me lift heavy boxes alone (something I'm accustomed to in general, but definitely with the rudest of our wholesale appointments) but on top of that, Thing 2 is literally standing "all up in my kool aid",  directly behind me, in the one spot of clear floor where the 50 lb. box I'm lifting is supposed to be dropped, and not only that but she's so close to me I actually have to adjust my elbows as they come down to avoid elbowing her in the face.  I wouldn't stand that close to someone in general (unless I was at a rock concert mosh pit or on Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras) but DEFINITELY not when they were doing physically exerting labor.   On top of that, she soon abandoned the fabric search after Thing 1 told her for the fourth time she didn't need what she was displaying to her, and began wandering around the warehouse moving things out of certain boxes into other boxes,  spilling entire contents of boxes onto the floor, and generally just behaving like a little child might.   Every once in awhile she'd exlaim loudly "OH MY GOD A WOODEN BOX!"  or "LOOK!  A CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT!"  -- and pull out the most ridiculous $1 item from the dollar store, while I gawked at her.   THAT's what you choose to be excited about, lady?   There are thousands and thousands of dollars of rarities, art, and glimpses into people's lives, but no, you want the $1 Santa from the Dollar Store.  IN AUGUST.    There is just no help for certain people.

Speaking of the glimpses into people's lives part, Thing 2 seemed to not be able to understand the concept of "Storage Units" --   there were SO many times where she WARNED me that there were credit cards with someone's name on it or photographs "just loose in this box!"  --  she kept bringing them to me for "safe-keeping"  and it's like,  first of all, no one is in here but us, and you, unfortunately, and second of all-- you are totally screwing up the sanctity of my blog by moving stuff from unit to unit--  how am I supposed to know where it originally came from if you keep moving it around?
 
At one point, I actually had to ask her "These eight boxes here are from a unit that we've just bought and we have not opened yet.  We do not even know what's inside them.  Please do not open them."  --  TWICE, and she still kept taking stuff out and moving it from box to box to box.   Finally I stood between her and the boxes physically hoping she would get the hint, but she just violated my personal space again and kept on trucking.   And for those of you who know me, it is EXTREMELY difficult to violate my personal space.

CLOSING TIME - ONE LAST CALL FOR ALCOHOL, UNFORTUNATELY, THERE ISN'T ENOUGH OF IT TO GO AROUND...

Finally, Thing 1 calls Thing 2 off of my secured boxes, and decides she's ready to checkout (Thank Goodness) and before we get to the climax of this sad tale, let's backup a minute and cover the "white satin issue" -- originally, she had asked me if I had satin, and I had told her yes, we have yards and yards of it.  A lot of it is remnants, some of it is a yard or two, some of it is bolts.     She never once mentioned to me that she was looking for white satin --  wouldn't it have made more sense that if you wanted one fabric (and ONLY one fabric) that you have the person bring it to you, as opposed to making them open up their entire supply for you to peruse through?  She's full of crap if she says she mentioned that to me before because there's no way I would have let her browse all of our fabrics.  She makes pageant sashes for women who are having bridal parties and bacheleorettes and birthday parties and apparently they sponteanously burst into flames if they are made out of any other color other than white.   She at one point said she'd take zebra print as well, but for whatever reason those are the only two types of fabric that could ever be needed. She's also full of crap that she told me beforehand she only wanted white, because she told me she was bringing $100 and a checkbook, so at $1-2 a yard, I mean, exactly HOW LARGE are these brides? 

Another point well made by me:   if you are looking for ONE type of fabric, and ONE type of fabric only,  this is not something you should try to find a discount on at a garage sale / estate sale / fabric wholesaler, etc.   Garage sales are for people who like to find random treasures or maybe pick from a few different categories of items.  If you want ONE material only, do eBay.  Buy in bulk.  Use the brains God gave you.  On top of that,  if you're charging $24.99 or whatever it is that you're making women pay for this piece of fabric that took you 20 minutes to sew and bedazzle,  then you can go spend $6.99 on a yard of satin.   For real.   She kept saying how much of a perfectionist she is---  honey, you cannot be a perfectionist AND this impossibly cheap.   There's just no way.

PLEASE, JUST LEAVE, ALREADY!

So... we go to check out.... and Thing 1 has found a bag of paper lunch baggies, like 100 in a bag, shrink-wrapped from whatever grocery store they came from,  some looseleaf paper still shrink-wrapped,  a formal dress that is really nice that she plans on cutting up, and about 3-4 yards of miscellanous fabrics.   I quote her $5, which is MORE than fair.  I remembered texting Brian at the very beginning of our appointment, once I saw her petulant attitude, that "I would be lucky to get $5-10 between the two of them"   -- so I was quoting low and hoping high, and I thought $5 was more than fair...  at a garage sale I would have charged $1 for both the bags and the looseleaf, (probably $3 in the store)  $2 for the dress, and about $1 each for each of the pieces of fabric... so I was giving her 3-4 items free.     FIVE DOLLARS.   She immediately points out that the dress is stained and that she has to use her "precious" laundry detergent to wash it (yeah, I'm pretty sure the word she used was something like that).    I told her to give me a break and that $5 was a good price, she was getting the stained thing for free (why'd she even pick it if it was so terrible), and she balked at the price again.  So I told her "FINE.  Just give me what YOU think it's worth."  At this point, I was just hoping for mercy, for at least enough to cover my gas, and to get out of there, and back to paying ventures forthwith.   She looks at me and goes "I don't want to insult you by only offering you $2 or $3."   I look right back at her and say "no, you WILL insult me if you DON'T offer me at LEAST $2 or $3."     She makes a face, I tell her I spent at least that amount on gas driving out there, she says "I did too!"  and then points out about the laundry detergent again.   Realizing I'm getting absolutely no where, I"m done... I start picking up the things they left EVERYWHERE and putting them back in the proper places,  righting toppled over boxes,  clearing a path for us to walk, and turning off lights and air conditioners.

Thing 2 still wants to make a purchase, and she has one of those "make you sweat" exercise belts, that's virtually new, and 3 washcloths.  (Once again, there is THOUSANDS of dollars of merchandise that I'm letting go for up to 75% off of full retail and you pick WASHCLOTHS?)   I quote her 3 for a dollar for the washcloths (otherwise we'll use them for the warehouse), and ask Thing 1 what SHE thinks is fair for the exercise band  (since obviously she's the expert on pricing)... and she says "I paid $10 for mine, so $5?"  Wow...  I think, that's remarkably fair.   I guess you give fair pricing when it's for anyone BUT you, including your senile friend.    I throw in the washcloths for free and she (I guess trying to save face now) makes a comment about how that's very fair.    At this point she could have been on fire (perhaps from a flaming sash that's the wrong color satin) and I don't think I would have looked up at her.   I was LIVID.   I turned off the lights as fast as I could and got them out of there.   They of course lingered in the parking lot chatting (because they have nothing else better to do, obviously) while I peeled out of there to get back to Performance / making money / civilization / the light. 

The beauty of the entire thing is, as we were leaving, they ask me "We really enjoy estate sales... you'll let us know when the next one is, right""   I say, "SURE."  through gritted teeth.  If you can't afford $5 in fabric and dresses and school supplies, what on God's green acres makes me think that you're fit for an estate sale where the cheapest item is going to be 5 times that?  Even if you could afford it, the sight of your face now makes me want to vomit, and I don't like vomiting.

I usually try to be kind and have grace under pressure and all of that, and I always try to watch what I write on blogs to either not offend people or hurt their feelings, but at this point, I really don't care.  The level to which people can disrespect and lack empathy is so ridiculously high, I wonder how we're even surviving as a human race these days.  I hope these women never ever make anyone else feel the way they made me feel today.   If it were me, after making someone move heavy boxes for 30 minutes, go out of their way to meet, me, whatever, I would have made myself find something I liked just to spend a few dollars.  It's the right thing to do. She HAD items she liked and she STILL wouldn't spend the money.     I need to find something really good to do with that $5.

Until next time...


We put the rage in Storage...

Storage Heroes

Home is where you hang your hat?

Hello again!

Rebecca here!  We've wanted to blog about this one for awhile, but truth be told we were missing the original "opening the door" pictures of this unit, so we were waiting to find them.  Between California and other such things, we have been unable to find them, so you'll just have to read our brilliant description and take our word for it :)

As usual, this blog has a FEW items of an adult nature-- it's probably one of the tamest we've written though that's "adult"  but I figured we'd warn you anyway.    It's probably rated PG-13.   If you don't like your kid walking around the drugstore and asking questions, you don't need them to be reading this.   That's a pretty good description.

Now...  we went to an auction last minute at a storage facility that is literally a block away from my father's car repair shop-- so it's convenient, to say the least.  Especially because if my Dad needs my help for a few hours, we can dig while I answer the phone, so it's a really good deal!    The doors rolled open and it was a tiny unit, a 2 X 3 or 3 X 5, but stuff was PILED HIGH, all the way to the ceiling. 60% of it was in boxes, but much of it was just loose.  It was a total mess.  Usually the kind that we find jewelry / gold / cash / treasure in.  We were immediately intrigued, but so were some newbies that happened to show up this one day only (we haven't seen them since) so they took us almost three times higher than we wanted to go.   In our defense, even though we don't condone being bullies to newbies (and like for people to grow their connections and bridges instead of being jerks),  sometimes if you have a newbie who is bidding uncontrollably against you it doesn't hurt to show them that you won't be bullied, either.  And that's exactly what we did, we did not back down, we won the unit, and we have not seen them since.

The one thing I did see in the unit was a Coach bag, and usually where there's one of those there's another.  Brian agreed with me that it looked real (Coach isn't THAT expensive so we very rarely seen knockoffs) so we went for it.    It took us about an hour to move the unit, and it went really well, because even though we didn't bring the van, we realized that we were able to have me inside digging / packaging / boxing while Brian was taking 3-4 car trips 2 blocks down the street to Performance Motor Werks (my Dad's repair facility.   They are great and specialize in imports, if you're in New Orleans give them a call at 504-822-2222.  Shoutout!)

After we moved everything to the dealership, this is what we had  (keep in mind this is about 8-10 boxes shy, that were still in the car).  Gives you an idea though of what it looked like:

 And even more stuff (it was a lot):

We started finding lots of different things.  Like crazy things.  But not crazy things.  Just odd varieties of things.  Let me start over.   It's not odd to find clothing or shoes in a unit.  But typically, you'll find 3 or 4 shoe sizes,  3 or 4 clothing sizes, and you can start ascertaining whether it was a woman and man and two kids, or four females, or a college dormitory, or whatever.  Right?    We had shoes in here of every size, clothing of every size,  school uniforms, costumes, just all kinds of things.  Nothing made any sense.  It wasn't a retail store because everything wasn't pristine.  Some items were but some were dirty and with smell.  It took awhile for the pieces of the puzzle to start to fit.   We won't spoil the surprise yet, for those of you playing along at home.

Here's a Santa Claus costume...


And I know this looks like nothing but what's so extraordinary about this is that it's a pair of pants (black jeans I think) that were so pressed or rolled over that they were completely flattened

There were actually some nice bags.. a knock off Louis Vuitton (pictured)  and a few Coach bags, we will get to that in a minute.  What was odd about each of the bags was their contents.  Here's the contents of the knockoff Louis:

Notice the packets of sunscreen,  Emergen-C,  ketchup, feminine products, and an extraordinary supply of condoms.  Some paperwork and bus passes, and a curling iron.  Figured out who our tenant is yet?  The clues are adding up...

There were a few pieces of jewelry that were either silver or what our tenant thought was silver.  Many were scratched and beaten up or rolled over.   Here was one such ring:

Notice lots of things were rolled over.  Any guesses yet?

LOTS of food.  Some of it was out of the packaging so you couldn't even tell what it was.  Lots of samples of things,  lots of packages of coffee --  and items you might find in hotel rooms, etc.

Interesting slogan on this shirt!

The back of the shirt has tire tread marks on it.

There were so many BAGS in this one, I figured we should play one of my favorite games, "What's in the Bag"   -- here's Bag #1

What's inside...  a TON of papers, plastic bags,  bus tickets,  casino cashout tickets, photos, and more!

In fact, there were a lot of purses, and while some of them seemed new, others weren't, and they were filled with all sorts of stuff.  Pretty quickly on, we realized that a lot of the purses were "acquired" --  I'm not going to say they were stolen, because there's no way we have of knowing that,  but let's just say at some point they obviously had lots of different owners.  There were, as we said, a couple of genuine Coach bags, so that was pretty cool.  They are still for sale if anyone is interested.

There were lots of pictures of our tenant getting married.  It appears to have been in a hospital, although I'm not totally sure about that.   Before you go feeling sorry for the tenant, though, or wondering about this ridiculously cute story-- you should also know, this marriage lasted 2 years (we have the divorce certificate) and was our tenant's 3rd or 4th marriage.  

Baby clothes, infant clothes,  and school uniforms.  See how random this is?

There were also lots of home health care items, including this bottle of Niacin.

There were also a ton of educational pamphlets and brochures, including this one, "Caring for Someone with Bipolar I Disorder."   And just so you know,  Bipolar I is a disorder that runs rampant in my family-- so, no jokes please.  But we WILL tell you that this is a pretty big clue to our tenant's identity.  Do you know yet?

Lots of the interiors of bags were cut open so that small things the tenant deemed valuable could be hidden from other people.  Bus tokens, unique coins,  keys,  and even things she thought were silver.

Time to play "What's in the Bag"  again.  Here's contestant #2:

A bunch of stuff.  Mainly papers, but stuff.

Here's all the stuff spread out:

Guessed yet? You're really close.  Here's a voucher resource sheet describing resources in the City of New Orleans  (where we are).

Some fliers for local Churches in the area:

More Bus tickets, tokens, and route maps:

A Ha!   Since this pretty much gives it away, we will go ahead and tell you.  Our tenant  was/is (we're not sure)  homeless:

Apparently these homeless shelters offer all types of resources, including those for people who just got out of prison:

There were also several cards.  The only reason I included the picture of this one is because I found it funny, we JUST wrote about the Gazebo cafe in our very last blog, about our trip to California and how it was replicated in Disneyland.  And now, here we are, writing about a unit before we left, and there's a picture of a business card from the same place.  Ladies and Gentlemen,  it IS a small world, after all.

One thing I don't understand (or maybe I do)  is how you can be homeless but have SO MANY of this cashout tickets / vouchers to Harrah's Casino.  There had to be 20+ in the bags in this unit.

Another bag filled with more paperwork,  more toiletries,  interesting things picked up off of the road (which explains our tire tracks and street marks on a lot of items), and yes, even more condoms.

The doubloons actually were cool.   For those of you from out of town, a Doubloon is something thrown at a Mardi Gras parade-- usually by members or royalty.  It's sometimes made of silver or gold but 99.9% of the time is just cheap plastic or aluminum.   They're basically worthless unless you can get a rare one or one of a specific krewe-- she had a pretty good assortment of ones she thought were "neat".

Guess What's in the Bag  #3:

Holy Water & shower curtain hooks!  I bet you didn't see that one coming!

Guess What's In The Bag Volume 4:

This one contains another bag,  a sample spray perfume (one of the designer knockoffs), more holy water, a  keychain, some change, and a few books.  Also some random paperwork.

The book was donated by Volunteers of America:

More random coins and things found on the street or wherever.  All very interesting.  Some old bus tokens and pay phone tokens we need to look up.

This bag was super heavy and totally got my attention even from the unit, because it was so out of place with all of the other things:

It's filled with various pieces of glass in different shapes and patterns, I guess for doing mosaic work, or putting in your yard, or whatever.  I'm told they sell for a few dollars a piece and we have a whole bag full.  And they are beautiful!  No idea where our tenant got these either but they are available for purchase.

It's not a purse but it's time for What's in the Bag #5 anyway:

More feminine products,  toiletries, sample sized items, and soaps.  Things like that.  I suppose our tenant was getting them from the various shelters and stock piling them for later use / need.

More feminine products:

Surgical / safety / dust mask.  Good for storage units!   We kept the unused ones and threw the open ones away! :)

Another bag filled with more of the same:

There were also as we mentioned, a ton of shoes, and purses.

Also not a bag, but "What's in the Bag" #6 ... ??

Of course!  The suitcase is filled with more papers!

What's funny,  well, not funny, but ironic, is that I took a break from Day 1 of digging and ended up having to leave the dealership and run across town for something.  On my way back, this overpass (underpass?)  which is NOTORIOUS for homeless people living underneath it had 5 or 6 police cars arresting people randomly, bringing them in, and trying to disperse them.  That used to be something that would happen often, but lately it seems like they were being left alone by the police, at least in that area.  It was ironic that this was happening AS I was going through a unit of a homeless person.

Back to Day 2 of the dig, and it's now apparent that our tenant has been married and divorced a few times,  has moved around a lot,  has had a ton of different odd ball jobs, but is still homeless.  We have lots of random items that have been procured on the streets in whatever way, and some items were literally picked up from the middle of the street where they had been run over by cars on a daily basis.  We also had a lot of sample sized toiletries, likely from homeless shelters and other such resource providing places.     But how does it all fit together?  I can only imagine that our person was compiling the items found into a storage unit either for her own personal use, or to sell the items to make a profit.

A ton more stuff, including chinese take out menus,  and a lot more condoms.


More condoms, with directions on how to use.  We found over 1000 condoms total.  Finally, it occurred to me that our tenant was getting them for free from all of the hospitals and free clinics around the area.   (Which also explains the instructional pamphlet provided with them).

Closeup of the instructional packet.  I still can't figure out why she needs SO MANY condoms!

Then I see this.   And I go  "TEN CENTS!  That's a really cheap price to sell a hat for.... OHHHHHH."      That's right kids... she was getting her free condoms from the clinic and selling them on the street for ten cents a piece.  You have to admire that sense of entrepreneurship!

Speaking of entrepreneurship, the last thing we should point out is that of all the items she had,  she had this plate-- which has a copy of the cover of Offbeat magazine on the front.  I'm not sure what the significance of this particular cover is.  I thought maybe it was custom made for our tenant, but.. no-- this was an actual cover.

And the prices of these plates are $45 each!    It's for sale if anyone wants it  ;)

Well that's pretty much it on this one.    We don't think the tenant was living in the unit (although we have seen that before),  it was just too small and packed to the gills with stuff.    We also did get some pretty good stuff for the price, including the Coach purses.  And a lot of the uniforms and things are brand new and easily sold.    Finally, we have enough toiletries unopened to last a lifetime, plus a super sizeable donation to the local shelters in the area.  To pay it forward, you know.

Until next time...

We bring fun to auction,

Storage Heroes