Long Term Storage Unit Acquisitions and

Apr 7
09:07

2012

Antoinette Ayana

Antoinette Ayana

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The show "Storage Wars" follows auction hunters as they bid on long term storage units in the hopes of finding something really valuable inside. They then resell or auction the items they find for a profit.

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One of my favorite shows is "Storage Wars." These people go to long term storage places and bid on units. The reason that they get to bid on units is because the people that had owned the units have not paid rent for the long term storage for more than three months. In California,Long Term Storage Unit Acquisitions and  Articles by law, the long term storage owner can have the unit auctioned as a single lot of items.

So, the show follows a group of auction hunters as they go from unit to unit, hoping that they will find something really valuable, like an antique or jewelry. Though one time, a group of auction hunters found an old Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and they thought that it was going to be worth a lot of money. The reason they thought this was because they had seen something like it go on eBay for a ridiculous amount of money. They didn't realize that the reason that it went for a lot of money was not because of the NES, but for the game that came with it. The game was incredibly rare and was in incredible condition. Interestingly enough, the person that put the whole thing up for auction had no idea of the value of the game and got a huge surprise when it sold for a lot of money.

So anyway, they took the NES to a person that was going to appraise it, and it turned out the thing didn't even work. The appraiser offered them somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen dollars. Of course, they had paid way more than that for the unit and were banking on this one thing to make them back all of their money. The unit was a total loss.

I think that's what makes the show so exciting. Each auction is a gamble. The auction hunters just get to barely see what's in the unit. The unit is opened and that's it. They aren't allowed to dig through it at all. So, each time, whatever they pay for something could turn out really great, break even, or fail miserably. And, it's kind of exciting to see them go through people's things. It's like getting to discover something about another human being that you don't even know. It's kind of like being an urban archeologist. Everything that the person put away is now broadcast to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

I wonder if people watch the show and see their own unit. All it takes is being late by three months with the rent on a long term storage unit and then it gets auctioned. So, I wonder if there are people that have had their unit auctioned and see it on the show. That would probably be a pretty weird experience for a viewer. Though for the rest of the people watching, it can be exhilarating as you vicariously live through the risk that the auction hunters are taking on each unit.