Your Best Auction Story

teamcapitola

What's your best Auction story?  Can be humorous, inspiring, or weird.

I have quite a few, but this last one was interesting.

We had our last auction a few months ago. One woman was desperately trying to avoid having her unit auctioned, but was unable to settle or follow a payment plan with us (we tried REALLY hard to avoid the sale)

Anyway, the day arrives, and just as the sale starts the woman calls. "I sent my friend down there with Cash to settle up and stop the auction!!"  I tell her its happening right now, but that I'll make sure the auctioneer goes to her unit last to buy her some time. About 30 minutes later, nobody shows up with money, and auctions over.

Turns out her friend DID actually show up with the cash, but thought he would "just bid for the unit, get it super cheap, and pocket the rest! everybody wins!"

He lost the unit to another bidder, and got to explain to the lady in our parking lot when she arrived about 10 minutes later.

last I saw she was jumping up and down on his cars hood screaming as he was trying to leave; cops arrived shortly.

i43storage

@teamcapitola - You win.  No story I tell will come close to that one.  

Orkocean

Sadly I never got to see the "aftermath" and it's probably not my best but your story made me think of it. At our first store we ran we had a local Sheriff that was over a mental unit or something like that *this comes in to play later* with a unit who came in and told us he had to "go away for awhile" and his uncle would be handling his account until he made it back. Well the payment came due, the uncle actually showed up, asked how much was owed, laughed and said screw the nephew, he's keeping the money. Never could get in touch with anyone again regarding the account and of course it sold in auction when the time came.

Our regular buyer who is a preacher that had his family help him clean units out when he won them unless certain "items" started showing up ended up winning the unit. Well they spent maybe 5 minutes in the unit and he sent them away, he was a regular and someone we were friendly with so he asked if after work I could help him since it was a big unit and quite full and it just meant moving them down the aisle to his actual units he had so I helped him out. Almost every single bag/box we opened was full of adult items, and not just basic stuff. We were finding 100's of homemade dvd's with titles that would make your stomach turn as they pertained to abusing mentally disabled people, stuff you would think you'd have to find on some black market underground craziness. I wont go into any of the details but i've managed an adult club, pretty much seen it all and I wouldn't touch this stuff with a 10' pole. We finally got it cleaned out and about 2 months later the tenant showed up asking why his code didn't work. Took everything I had to keep from going off on the guy but I did enjoy telling him his uncle came in, laughed about not paying it and that we never heard from him again. I even "let it slip" that when it sold a preacher bought the unit, the look on his face was a slight pleasure.

ESS

@Orkocean I don't know whether to laugh or puke in disgust. I would have kept a small box of the items, not videos, in case he came back, to give to him. Here ya go bud, we saved some of your personal items. On the other hand, could you imagine what was going through the trash guy's heads while dumping that stuff??

CVSSSTORAGE

It did not happen here but a storage place nearby. Someone rented a unit and never paid after move in, it went to auction. When it was opened it was full of appliance boxes and electronics boxes. Microwaves, stereos, playstations, Xboxes you name it. It was a 10x25. The unit sold for a huge amount way over what the tenant owed. The boxes were all empty, the tenant knew if anything went over what was owed the storage place had to give him the difference. He came in that day asking for his money. I am not sure what ended up happening with that situation but the auction guy told me the guy ended up getting caught doing it at various storage places.

Orkocean

CVSSSTORAGE said:

It did not happen here but a storage place nearby. Someone rented a unit and never paid after move in, it went to auction. When it was opened it was full of appliance boxes and electronics boxes. Microwaves, stereos, playstations, Xboxes you name it. It was a 10x25. The unit sold for a huge amount way over what the tenant owed. The boxes were all empty, the tenant knew if anything went over what was owed the storage place had to give him the difference. He came in that day asking for his money. I am not sure what ended up happening with that situation but the auction guy told me the guy ended up getting caught doing it at various storage places.

That happened near you? I've heard that story or something similar for years all over the country when talking shop with people. Almost sounds like someone who worked in a storage, knew about the overages being paid to the tenant and thought he could be sneaky. I've also heard of deceitful managers staging units like that, kind of what made me stop doing auctions in my free time.

i43storage

@Orkocean  - so the Preacher turned them over to the police?

Orkocean

i43storage said:

@Orkocean  - so the Preacher turned them over to the police?

Never heard if he did or not. It wasn't too long after that we got moved by the company from TX to FL. I can hope he did but considering all his evidence ended up going straight to the dumpsters I doubt it.

teamcapitola

I guess my second best story was this "mystery" 10x10 that went to auction. The unit was packed floor to ceiling with those large plastic bins....literally not an inch to spare left inside!

The winning bidder came into the office and almost cried; EVERY one of those bins was full of rocks! ordinary run of the mill plain Jane ROCKS.

No value except for ballast or construction I suppose. This poor guy paid almost $300 for the privilege of lugging a ton of rocks out of my facility.

i43storage

teamcapitola said:

I guess my second best story was this "mystery" 10x10 that went to auction. The unit was packed floor to ceiling with those large plastic bins....literally not an inch to spare left inside!

The winning bidder came into the office and almost cried; EVERY one of those bins was full of rocks! ordinary run of the mill plain Jane ROCKS.

No value except for ballast or construction I suppose. This poor guy paid almost $300 for the privilege of lugging a ton of rocks out of my facility.

That is EVIL. 

AnitaJohnson1269

Not an auctions story, but I worked at a facility for about 9 years. One day while changing bulbs, I could see over into a unit (10x15 or maybe 20 climate) that had a single 5 gallon plastic tote.  Odd I thought, but when I checked the gate logs it got even more odd.  The tenant had not been to the facility since renting the unit 8 1/2 years earlier!  So they had paid on a single tote for more than 8 years....  The company sold in 2015 and had their own managers.  I still to this day wonder what was in that tote!?

MamaDuke7

AnitaJohnson1269 said:

Not an auctions story, but I worked at a facility for about 9 years. One day while changing bulbs, I could see over into a unit (10x15 or maybe 20 climate) that had a single 5 gallon plastic tote.  Odd I thought, but when I checked the gate logs it got even more odd.  The tenant had not been to the facility since renting the unit 8 1/2 years earlier!  So they had paid on a single tote for more than 8 years....  The company sold in 2015 and had their own managers.  I still to this day wonder what was in that tote!?

Mummified body of an ex???   

teamcapitola

AnitaJohnson1269 said:

Not an auctions story, but I worked at a facility for about 9 years. One day while changing bulbs, I could see over into a unit (10x15 or maybe 20 climate) that had a single 5 gallon plastic tote.  Odd I thought, but when I checked the gate logs it got even more odd.  The tenant had not been to the facility since renting the unit 8 1/2 years earlier!  So they had paid on a single tote for more than 8 years....  The company sold in 2015 and had their own managers.  I still to this day wonder what was in that tote!?C

Cartel payoff a la Breaking Bad?!?  but everyone involved is "missing"

87ambie

Not an auction story, but pretty recently rented to a tenant and their "car broke down" in the facility. They notified the office around 2.30pm that they were expecting a tow truck ... Fast forward to 5pm when the facility closes and they whip around to the next lane over. They proceed to cut 15 locks off of doors (some vacant units included). Do they steal anything worth while...? You decide... they skipped over computer and satellite equipment to take a cheap guitar. They simply dug thru boxes in other lockers. All in all... just one big headache!!

olivermason99

AnitaJohnson1269 said:

Not an auctions story, but I worked at a facility for about 9 years. One day while changing bulbs, I could see over into a unit (10x15 or maybe 20 climate) that had a single 5 gallon plastic tote.  Odd I thought, but when I checked the gate logs it got even more odd.  The tenant had not been to the facility since renting the unit 8 1/2 years earlier!  So they had paid on a single tote for more than 8 years....  The company sold in 2015 and had their own managers.  I still to this day wonder what was in that tote!?

Ghosts may be... 

teamcapitola

Our Next Auction is this Wednesday, and I'm DYING to know what is in these 2 boxes...seriously taped up!

Don't know why it rotated, but I'm too tired to fix.

 

Orkocean

Well I mean I am off this wednesday.... not too far of a drive! lol

i43storage

Okay, that's a bit unnerving.  Be sure to let us know @teamcapitola

Orkocean

@teamcapitola

teamcapitola

The (boxes) contained plastic cases for a brand of "Vape" pen...no actual product, just the plastic case they are sold in. So...No heads...

I just had one of the auctioned tenants show up today to "pay the late account". When I explained that he had been auctioned, and where had he been for the last 4 months, he replied "oh, I saw the emails, but was waiting to get money"

ALL the guy had to do was call! We could have worked something out. had no way of contacting him (phone disconnected, address invalid/letters returned) and finally had to auction; We literally thought he had passed away or something!

He is a really nice guy too.. aside from the whole "didn't pay rent for 5 months"

CVSSSTORAGE

@teamcapitola
we had a lady who was screaming at me for auctioning her stuff off. I said we called you on these dates, you said you would be in on these dates. We sent out letter after letter and even called you Monday to remind you of the auction on Friday, Did you not get any of that? She said oh we did just the last time our lien expired we had more time. I said you had more time because your auction missed the cut off for lock cuts. The letters and phone calls specifically said you stuff would sell on this time and date if payment wasn't made. She called harassing us for a week calling us thieves and said we wanted her stuff for ourselves  

i43storage

CVSSSTORAGE said:

@teamcapitola
we had a lady ... said we wanted her stuff for ourselves  

Yes, you did!  You wanted all of those cheap knock-off purses, used shoes, plastic bins full of used make-up, and let's not forget the broken pressed board tv entertainment center.  

teamcapitola

EVERYONE seems to truly believe that their stuff is pure gold!

One auctioned tenant threaten to sue us because of the low price her unit was sold for...she truly believed that her unit would sell "for thousands" because (and i'm not kidding) there was a TRUMP BRAND Queen mattress worth "at least $6000"

She had researched and knew that if the unit sold for more than she owed, she would get a check for the difference...she literally had it spent already!

Was a nasty stained mattress.. along with a bunch of misc. crap....unit sold for $20. We endured her screaming phone calls for months.

You know, because I'm totally sleeping on that mattress and counting the money we stole!

Orkocean

Man you guys need to step up your customer service lol... You're talking about people screaming and yelling when their stuff got sold, my wife a few years back in FL got a 5 star glowing review from a lady where we sold her unit. She came in the office to find out it was sold, set and talked with her, understood it was her own fault and left a long review how she loved our facility/service and it was her own fault that her stuff was sold or she'd still be a customer.

CVSSSTORAGE

@i43storage
that was exactly what was in her unit, she did have a nice table and a day bed frame in it as well.

JayBee

We need an OMG button!  Thanks for the laughs.

Christy_Caldwell

A manager I worked under many years ago, had a customer come in the day before the auction to say if she let him access his space, he could pay the amount due.  He swore there was a shoe box with over $14k cash inside of his storage unit and if he could get to it he would pay his bill.  The manager told him it was his dumb fault for storing that amount of cash and No he couldn't have access.  An hour or so later, the guy came back with a gun and pointed it through the fence at the manager.  She said in a polite but firm voice, "If you think you are scaring me into giving you access, your crazy.  Now get the heck out of here before I call the cops."  The guy was so thrown off by what she told him, he left and came back a third time with his wife who was very upset with him and she paid the bill.  He went straight to his storage unit and got the shoe box.  Before he left he came in the office and said, "See I told you I had the money to pay."

CVSSSTORAGE

@Christy_Caldwell
 I would have still called the police

Orkocean

CVSSSTORAGE said:

@Christy_Caldwell
 I would have still called the police

Shoot *bad pun*... I'd of called the cops, pressed charges, if I was still at my first site i'd probably give a "tip" to one of my regular buyers I liked about the unit as he bought units to make $$ for his church he preached at instead of relying on others to donate.

Christy_Caldwell

Right...I guess she thought it was more fun to make the guy squirm than to put him in jail. 

Christy_Caldwell

I had a woman who was such a nightmare tenant that when it was time to sell her stuff I was excited to be getting rid of her.
The day of the auction, she was hanging out at the front gate and I told her she was not allowed at the property during the auction especially since her unit was being sold unless she had the money to pay.

When the auctioneer got to her unit, some unfamiliar guy stepped up and outbid the rest of the bidders.  A few minutes later the auctioneer says we have to go back to the unit and sell it again because the guy did not have the cash to pay for what he bid on it. 
Everyone goes back and once again the unit sells but to a bidder who has the money in hand.

The next morning when I open the office, I see the woman on the camera going into her space.  I went out to see what she was doing and she said she was getting stuff out of her unit.  I told her the unit sold yesterday and it doesn't belong to her anymore.  She handed me a piece of paper and said to call the number.  I said I don't need to call anyone to know you don't belong here.  She said she bought the unit back that morning from the guy who bought it the day before. 
I guess she waited for the guy that morning in front of the unit.  When he showed up to move the stuff out, she was there crying and begging him to give her the stuff back because that was all she had left in the whole wide world.
The guy said he felt so bad that he just let her have it all back and told me it was ok to keep the cleaning deposit just in case she doesn't finish moving the stuff out....Unbelievable.

Orkocean

Wait... I havn't operated in all states but i've yet to be in a state that didn't specify an auction as a "Sale open to the public". Tenants are allowed to be at the sale and even allowed to bid on their own units as annoying as it is. If they begin making a scene or harassing people then you can kick them out of the auction just as you would any person who's there and causing issues.

When we did live auctions and we knew a tenant or friend of tenant was on site we made sure the auctioneer was aware and they would tell the crowd who would then jack the price up. With online auctions it's even easier for the tenant to make an account and bid on their units as others don't know it's them.

i43storage

Yes, tenants are allowed to bid on their auction in our state too.  Wouldn't you WANT more bidders?

themage

Yeah, even though they are in breach of contract, the tenant is still a member of the public. Unless they are a security risk or unruly during the auction, they should be treated as any other bidder. If they are going to be a problem, we would ask them nicely to send an agent in their stead.

The regulars are pretty sharp, though, and will probably notice someone there to bid on their own stuff. Often, they will bid it up when they do.

teamcapitola

As Far as I know, if a tenant shows up to their own auction, the Auctioneer will announce to the crowd that the "owner" is present.

At least that's what happened with us in the past. A few have shown up thinking that they could get the unit cheap, only to have it backfire when they were announced.

Our last auction had a "girlfriend" show up and bid. She ended up winning, took a few items out and abandoned the rest. At least I recognized her and set the deposits at $100, but "druggie" unit FULL of used needles.... seriously...FULL of! 

We are in the same shopping center as a CVS, who provided me with the FOUR sharps containers to clean out the unit. Charged the company for some nice puncture proof gloves too!

i43storage

@teamcapitola - That is the saddest thing that you need to deal with that.  So sad.

CVSSSTORAGE

@teamcapitola
we had a unit like that here. It was also full of anti freeze and paint thinner the tenant would use the unit to get high. One day my coworker found him facedown and unresponsive called the fire department and they came and revived him he was huffing the paint thinner. When we emptied his unit it was nothing but piles of cigarettes', paint thinner cans, anti freeze and bottle with human pee in them =/ 

i43storage

@CVSSSTORAGE - Okay, I lied.  THAT is the saddest thing.  

Orkocean

Just pee? lucky you!   We had a guy in Florida I caught living in his unit at a site we took over, just the night before I caught him outside the property taking a dump in our bushes and chewed his out. So finding him in his unit on a walkthru the next day pushed me over. Told him get his items and be off my property by the end of the day. He took what he wanted, left the "fun" stuff. I have a pretty strong stomach, have cleaned up "messes"  before but this one had me gagging. I don't want to be too detailed as to not sicken anyone else but he used a 5 gallon water jug as a toilet, in a black trash bag and I guess didn't care if it made it in the jug or not. Stop now if you have a weak stomach and imagine things as you read like I do...


It seeped thru the bag, got all over the unit, then the back of my golfcart as I took it to dumpster. The entire time i'm gagging at the smell and every "slosh" I heard as I went over bumps and around corners had me dry heaving. It was an indoor unit so the smell was in the hall as soon as we opened the door to go check that night and took quite a bit of cleaning to get back to bearable.

CVSSSTORAGE

@Orkocean
we have had people do that but they put it in the halls thinking they are slick. Like no one was here but you after I did my checks and I see you go into a hallway that's not yours with a bag and when you come out there was no bag. People are so gross

Storageinasnapp

@Orkocean WOW, just wow.   Unbelievable!   

ESS

@Orkocean Before I was hired with the company, there was an assistant manager that I replaced. None of the tenants liked her and she happened to live on site. Well, one morning she got up and there was a 5 gallon bucket beside her car, she opened it and it was full of human excrement. One of the tenants saved it for a really long time just to present it to her. It was horrible but when I say this woman could be unbearable, I'm not exaggerating. I rented a Uhaul before I was employed and she did my paperwork and lied about the fuel level and mileage when I brought it back....so I understood the tenant's side lol. They never got caught

teamcapitola

This thread is KILLING me!  The stories keep getting sadder, stranger and more scatological !

At least she left everything in a bucket!

.....Like this guy leaving a Ziploc bag for his used syringes. Easy to say now, but I think I would have rather dealt with the bucket! 

Pat

At other locations we had just about all of the above. In one we found a suitcase FULL of passports, social security cards, drivers licenses, counterfeit money, etc - local police picked it up.  Another time we had DEA serving a warrant on a drug dealer - they blocked off the street, took over our entry street and gate keypad. After tenant they wanted entered,  there must have been 15 officers with guns pulled and aimed. He gave  up quietly. 

i43storage

Pat said:

At other locations we had just about all of the above. In one we found a suitcase FULL of passports, social security cards, drivers licenses, counterfeit money, etc - local police picked it up.  Another time we had DEA serving a warrant on a drug dealer - they blocked off the street, took over our entry street and gate keypad. After tenant they wanted entered,  there must have been 15 officers with guns pulled and aimed. He gave  up quietly. 

Okay, now THAT would be fun to watch, and the suitcase full of passports, et al. - wow.

CoffeeZilla

Just had my first crazy lady auction(almost), and I'm sure there are more to come.  

    She's been through "hard times", barely pays part of her bill, I offer her a payment plan that will still get her paid up before auction time, but the auction will continue if she doesn't pay in full. Every time she visits the office she smells like pee. Her eyes are sometimes glassy and one time she's visibly inebriated. Gate system shows she never visits her unit, she just comes in to pay and talk junk about her ex husband. She pays a couple times and then disappears from the planet for a while. Calls, emails, letters of lien all vanish into the nether and I get no response. So the unit goes into pre-auction status. That means I have to cut the lock, take pics, and put in my managers' lock until the auction date. 

    As I get closer to her outdoor non-climate controlled unit, I smell a smelly smell and I don't like it. As I'm standing in front of her unit with drill in hand, a rotted fragrance assails my senses. I hold my breath and my eyes water. Apparently the odor was only waiting for me to open the door so it could unleash it's full fury at me. I'm knocked back by a wave of stewing human excrement. I stagger back about 10 feet just so I can take a breath, before rushing forward to snap as many pics as I can physically stand. All I can manage is 4 before the dry heaving begins to feel too powerful for me to stand and threatens to actually make me lose my lunch. Then slam the door shut, lock it, and run away in search of Purell.

    I get back to to the office and look through the pictures to try to figure out what made that smell. It looked like an ordinary unit, things were even neatly stacked. But then I see it; an open tupperware container with old, full diapers that had been rotting in the 95+ degree summer heat for AT LEAST 4 months while her unit was in and out of overlocked status. Now that I opened Pandora's box, the rotted odor can be smelled from 50 feet away. 

    A couple of days later, she shows up to pay in full, and I give her a free replacement lock and key set (I should have charged her for it) and she goes back to get a few things out of her unit. Later I'm driving through the lot to warn people that it's about to rain, as there are several people on the lot outside. I see her, we chat happily, she talks more bs about her ex husband, and then she mentions he has a key and access to her unit, which is why she was desperate to get her things out. We each go on our merry way, but later on that afternoon I get an email from her stating that she's missing an item from her unit.

    A few minutes later, the crazy begins, as she sends another email full of bad language, and incoherent babble. From what I can make of it, she's missing one specific item, and then, almost as a side note, she says "and other items". I send a concerned email back asking her if she called the police to give a statement or make a report, and ask what was taken. Another email back from her full of expletives and incoherent babble. This time accusing me of taking "that one specific item" (which incidentally belongs to her ex) and "other items". I then send the entire email paper trail, receipts, screenshots, pictures taken (with the diapers highlighted) to the facility owner, who then forwards it to our attorney. She goes email silent with me, but then begins blowing up the owner's email. She vacates completely two days later, sends an email to me to let me know what she thinks of me and also to let me know she's left her trash in her unit for me to sort through, because she thinks I might want it.

    I really don't want to clean out her unit, but I don't want her back on the lot. I remove her from the system, so no more gate access, and grit my teeth to go inspect her unit(gotta see what I'm dealing with to properly clean it.) Again, from 50 feet away, I smell IT. I thought she cleaned her unit out??? I open the door praying that there's not a pile of poop in the middle of the floor; thankfully there isn't, but there's a large pile of trash on one side and in the back there are dead mice, a pack'nplay mobile, and a pee stained baby carseat. To the right there are two, large, sticky yellow-ish patches on the wall and floor. I empty an entire can of Ozium into the unit and run away, hoping the coming afternoon rain will kinda clean the air so I can get in there with some white vinegar and a full hazmat suit. 2 days later, I come back fully armed, and while it's not rentable yet, I can breathe more naturally now.

Still ongoing - she's sent more incoherent emails to about 10 other tenants. How she's getting their emails is beyond me, and I'm now mad because she's bothering other people. If I can get the other tenants to forward the emails to me, I'll send them along to the attorney, because she's still bothering people.

MamaDuke7

WOW!  I've had some crazies.  But finding the emails of other tenants is scary stuff!!!

ESS

@CoffeeZilla Do you ever CC your tenants letters? That's the only plausible way I can figure she got their email addresses.  

AKKathie

CVSSSTORAGE said:

It did not happen here but a storage place nearby. Someone rented a unit and never paid after move in, it went to auction. When it was opened it was full of appliance boxes and electronics boxes. Microwaves, stereos, playstations, Xboxes you name it. It was a 10x25. The unit sold for a huge amount way over what the tenant owed. The boxes were all empty, the tenant knew if anything went over what was owed the storage place had to give him the difference. He came in that day asking for his money. I am not sure what ended up happening with that situation but the auction guy told me the guy ended up getting caught doing it at various storage places.

We had that recently at one of our facilities.  The guy had actually moved out in time but did not remove the lock from the unit which, of course, we could not breach.  So when it came time for lock cut we saw the boxes labelled for auto parts, etc.  When the bidder paid way too much for it and found out they were ALL empty he was not very happy.  So the customer just didn't want to haul away the cardboard??  We could never figure out why he didn't just come remove the lock as our voicemails had asked for.

CoffeeZilla

ESS said:

@CoffeeZilla Do you ever CC your tenants letters? That's the only plausible way I can figure she got their email addresses.  

Small town, she had several 'friends' who rented here, and they knew other people who rented here. One of her 'friends' emailed me about how horrible I was, and then without giving away the tenant's personal info, I made her aware of what happened. Basically used everything she said as a question, "So if that happened, why would she act this way?" and asked her to fact check her friend before she came at me, because it's illegal to threaten someone's livelihood like that.

ESS

CoffeeZilla said:

ESS said:

@CoffeeZilla Do you ever CC your tenants letters? That's the only plausible way I can figure she got their email addresses.  

Small town, she had several 'friends' who rented here, and they knew other people who rented here. One of her 'friends' emailed me about how horrible I was, and then without giving away the tenant's personal info, I made her aware of what happened. Basically used everything she said as a question, "So if that happened, why would she act this way?" and asked her to fact check her friend before she came at me, because it's illegal to threaten someone's livelihood like that.

Oh, so they' re just messy messy lol

CoffeeZilla

ESS said:

Oh, so they' re just messy messy lol

LOL yes, trashy. HOWEVER, I do wish I could help as many of my customers out who are having issues with life. I've been through similar situations and crawled out by my own hands, but it took someone telling me that I was worth the work it took to get out. What I don't appreciate is a customer getting an attitude or lying about the situation, because they're still trying to play the victim and that type of mentality keeps people thinking stinking poor thoughts.

I was wondering if anyone on here had ever had a customer who they felt they could help, who wouldn't bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak? Like trying to help someone from going into auction, and then when the inevitable happened anyway, they lied about it and caused a scene?