Who knows what strange treasures lurk inside a storage unit?
Storage-auction bidder Mark Binkley of Starkville knows all too well.
In some, bidders may find a makeshift home.
“It’s a cheap place to stay,” Binkley said. “It’s a $50-a-month hotel room. It’s illegal, but it’s a cheap place to stay.”
Binkley has participated in storage auctions for about three years.
Ken, who lives in Monroe County and declined to give his last name, has been participating in storage auctions for more than 30 years.
His first was in 1977 in Nashville, Tenn. He remembers it well: When the door was lifted, there was a mattress, a small TV and a pot of fresh, hot coffee.
“So they were living in there,” he said. “It’s not unheard of for people to do this.”
“One time they raised the door and there was only one item in there, and it was a hot tub,” Binkley said. “Of course, everybody was trying to be contortionists, trying to lay on the ground or jump in the air to see if there were any cracks or holes in it.”
People stash cars, motorcycles, trucks — anything someone can fit inside.
“I bought a ’74 Charger out of one a few years ago. Mint condition. Big hot rod,” Ken said. “Maybe once or twice a year you see something like that. I bought a unit last Christmas that had five bars of silver in it. But the real money to be made is in common, household bedroom items. A bedroom set you get for $100, you can sell for $200 or $250. That’s where the real money is.”
On TV, the “cream of the crop” is featured, Ken said, but there are several people who make their living off the small purchases.
“It’s sort of feast or famine,” Binkley said.
Ken has bought units for as low as $1 and as high as $2,000.
“Right now I’m waiting on two buildings to come up for auction. One is full of Civil War relics, and the other one has a 1965 Mustang in it that only has 15,000 miles on it,” he said.
The units, usually 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide, are filled with all sorts of stuff. Most of it is useless, but there are hidden diamonds in the rough.
“About one-third of everything in there, you know it’s going straight to the dump, and about a third you know is good stuff that you can sell,” Binkley said. “The other third is the question mark where you will either make money or lose money.”
Sometimes there are “mystery boxes.”
“Those mystery boxes, nine times out of 10 are stacks full of clothes,” Binkley said.
Other times, there are much stranger things: Pornography? Absolutely. Drugs? You bet. Guns? More than once.
Finding pornography in abandoned units is “a lot more common than I would’ve expected,” said Brandon Wright, owner of Clayton Village Mini Storage in Starkville.
And Ken has found storage units with a “large amount of marijuana.”
“There was one that one time was a meth lab,” he said. “One had bottles and bottles of prescription drugs — big bottles.”
When guns are found, the serial numbers are run, Ken said.
“Only once did I find one that was stolen,” he said. “It was wrapped up in a Christmas present. You don’t want to mess with anything that is stolen.”
Often, people put photo albums and other personal belongings or cherished family artifacts in the units. Those break Binkley’s heart because the previous owner may never see them again.
“One just last week told me he found an urn in one he just bought. But he got with the storage company and got in touch with the owner to give it back,” Binkley said.
“I try to get the personal effects back to them, but it doesn’t always work out,” Ken said. “For about 10 years I saved all the personal effects in small boxes, and in those 10 years maybe only four people came to get their stuff.”
Once, Ken bought a storage unit that contained family artifacts dating back at least a century. He found a locker filled with family photos and documents dating back to pre-Civil War and multiple $200 savings bonds. He searched for years, trying to find the owner to return what he believed were valuable and cherished family items. But it was a lost cause, he thought.
“I was in a grocery store one day and recognized the name when it was called on the intercom,” Ken said. “Just out of a hunch I went and talked to the manager, and sure enough it was the youngest son of this person. He and his sister were living with their grandmother; their mother had disappeared. I got all the personal effects plus the savings bonds to him, and as far as I know they still don’t know where their mother is.
“There’s thousands of stories to tell.”
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