Maybe I should get into buying abandoned storage units?

[OcelotZ3]

I had a small storage unit in Eugene, Oregon between fall 1984 and summer 1985.

Lock was cut after just a few months and all my clothes and stuff strewn about and some stuff broken. They got a much-used Craftsman drill I had bought used, a few tools and a pair of motorcycle wireless headsets.

 

[Flopsweat]

You guys are freaking me out about the storage units.

Family will be moving to to rural somewheresville for a year by next summer for my wife's internship. The plan was to just store most of what we got - no sense in moving it only to then move it again for the next year (post-doc) only to then move it again where we decide to settle.

I'm liking the storage idea less and less the more I read about it.

I've heard good things about PODS but I have never used them.

EDIT: I just looked at the Yelp reviews and wow the Seattle location must really suck.

 

[The Heretic]

I've heard good things about PODS but I have never used them.

EDIT: I just looked at the Yelp reviews and wow the Seattle location must really suck.

I have. It is locked with your lock (IIRC) until you have it delivered, and it is stored in a secure place (they claim) where other customers cannot come and go at their pleasure. The container is not fully metal (at least mine wasn't). The sides were thick plastic. But that was 10+ years ago when I moved from Seattle to Hillsboro.

 

[3MTA3]

That box is labeled canning jars

Thems is yard darts fer Antifas. I'd just duck tape some fins on em and see if any wants to play: "Ya pulls the pin then wait ten seconds before throwin at thet yeller ring"

 

[orygun]

In the last 10 years, I'd say, the building of high rise storage units has increased exponentially in NE potland.

]
I don't get it.

My wife and I were talking about this again yesterday. They're popping up all over. In all fairness I admit that we used one for a few months several years ago. It worked out well and the price of the rent prompted me to get my stuff back out. I needed the extra space it gave me during the soggy time of the year.
Now I have stuff stored at home that I shouldn't be storing.

 

[Lazyfaire]

Too bad those pictures don't show more. The grenades look like they might be dummy practice pieces. The practice "pineapple" grenades were unpainted with a blue spoon on them, blue for practice but we can't see enough to note color of such. Practice grenades usually have a hole in the bottom to allow spent gases from the flash cap to escape. It kinda looks like one of the grenades in the picture has a hole in the bottom.

I knew a guy in this area who was buying abandoned locker contents at auction. He only attended auctions where the doors were open and a minimal view of contents was permitted. If he could get some clue that there were things there of interest to him, he'd bid. He sometimes came up with reloading stuff in this manner which he sold to members of a range I belong to. Powder and bullets, mostly. Sometimes ammo, some of which was reloads.

I have no way to prove or even know the following. I suspect that there are times when abandoned locker contents up for auction are not virgin. Meaning, locker employees may highgrade them first. Let us say, it's probably a temptation for some.

Re. the quality in general of abandoned storage locker contents. It isn't like some of what you see on "Storage Locker Wars" or whatever. A rule of thumb, if someone didn't think any more of the stuff than to let it go, it probably wasn't worth much. The exception might be dead people whose relatives didn't know about the existence of the locker, or didn't bother to check into it.

What amazes me is the utter rubbish that some people pay good money to store for years.

Two things come to my mind. (1) If I have anything of much value, I'm not gonna keep it in a public storage locker due to security issues. (2) If it is such low importance to me to store it remotely, it very likely isn't worth keeping.

Its gotta be less expensive to take stuff to the dump than to pay monthly fees. Makes no sense to me

 

[FriendOfEvanWilliams]

Its gotta be less expensive to take stuff to the dump than to pay monthly fees. Makes no sense to me

One of the things I learned after managing one of these places for a few years was that people can't admit to themselves that they're going to throw all of their dead relatives useless crap in the dump, so they rent out a unit and then inevitably default and they never give it another thought. It's a weird sort of universal cop-out.

 

[Heyjoe]

Dad bought one in the 90s that contained many tens of thousands worth of vintage Tonka trucks. Still has a few but most were sold on ebay for crazy money.