Following Your Nose at Self Storage Facility Auctions
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Article 9
–
Following Your Nose at Storage Facility Auctions
I
’
ve been fascinated watching the cable TV shows about storage f
acility auctions and the
awesome goodies inside a unit that the guys re-sell for thousan
ds of dollars of profit. So
I
’
ve gone to a few storage facility auctions in my area and ta
lked to the folks that bid a lot
and discovered that your nose can be your best friend in
determining the value of the unit
being auctioned off.
When the auctioneer cuts the lock on a unit you aren
’
t allowed to go inside. You can
only peer in from the doorway before the bidding begins. M
any of the choicest items
will be in boxes, hidden behind other items, or buried in the f
ar back of the storage unit.
So how does anyone ever know how much a unit is worth?
After watching several auctions take place, and watching while
winners unpacked their
units to take the items away, I
’
ve learned one way that successful storage facility auction
bidders determine the value of the unit
’
s contents
–
or even determine whether or not to
bid at all. When the door is first opened many auction bidder
s close their eyes and open
their noses!
There are things that can be very telltale about a unit
from the smells. Things to steer
clear of are units that smell like cigarette or fire smoke,
and units with strong pet smells
like dog or cat urine. The contents will have less value be
cause of the odor.
If a unit smells dusty (not musty) that can be a sign that
the contents have been stored a
long time. This is great to know if you are looking for a
ntiques. If the unit has strong but
good smells you might be looking at a bunch of scented cand
les or other easy-
to
-sell
items.
When the door is opened if you smell anything like mold or milde
w don
’
t bid. The items
have likely either sustained water damage since being stored or
before hand. It is nearly
impossible to resell anything in that condition. If the pe
rmeating smell is of mouse or rat
feces steer clear as well. Cleaning items that have bee
n contaminated by vermin can be
time consuming and disgusting.
One auction bidder shared a story with me about being nearly
bowled over by the smell
of BBQ when a door was cut open. Nobody bid, and purely out of
curiosity, this fellow
placed a $5.00 bid and still no one else bid. So he won an enti
re unit of boxes for just
$5.00. When he began unloading boxes what he found was 44 boxes
full of jars of BBQ
sauce. Unfortunately, two boxes had been dropped and that expl
ained the smell.
Now if the BBQ sauce was still in date, it could have been s
old for some amount of
money. But these bottles had expired six years before.
So for $5.00 this poor guy
“
won
”
the opportunity to clean out the storage unit for the facility
manager.
If he had followed his nose, he probably could have saved himself
the effort.
While some of the seasoned pros will tell you that they ca
n
“
smell money
”
in a good unit
when the door is cut open, that is probably just an old wive
’
s tale. But you can smell
clues to the money value of the unit if you follow your nos
e once the unit is opened up
for the auction.
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