Hello friends and welcome to another video. Today,
I'm going to be buying and opening an abandoned storage unit so
Lately I've been seeing a lot of people do videos where they'll buy and open an eBay mystery box
And I figured it would be fun to open a different type of mystery box: an abandoned storage unit
Basically what happens with storage units is that if someone abandons one the storage company
Auctions off the contents inside. which is basically a glorified
Way of saying they have other people pay them to clean it out for them.
But, you do get to keep whatever's in there including any hidden gems
Which you could hang on to or as some people
Do you could resell and it seems like if you know what you're doing it can be pretty lucrative
I of course however,
Do not know what I'm doing, but after looking up some local live storage auction listings and binge watching some storage wars
I've decided to try my hand at it.
So we're gonna go to an auction try and buy a unit and see what's inside. okay!
Let's go so to begin our journey buying an abandoned storage unit we got a u-haul van, and if we don't need it
Well, we got a van anyway (we got a van) and headed down to a storage auction
that was about 45 minutes away
It seemed perfect it was in the early afternoon there were like 22 units available
We were cruising. So it seems like pretty much every single storage unit that
We talked to about this doesn't want us to film so we're gonna film what
we can but if we can't film something,
We'll just tell you guys what happened .so we got there
And we signed in and then we like waited around until 2:00 when the auction was supposed to start and I'm pretty sure we were
The only people there. Okay, so I'm just gonna start in like a 15 minutes
We're gonna scarf down our Mickey D's, and then we're gonna go try and buy a storage unit this is
Happening so we walked into the main office like right at 2:00
And the guy like looked at us almost with a smile on his face was like it's cancelled
Okay
so
The auction was cancelled my theory as to why they were cancelled is that when Tyler signed in they saw his name and Tyler's been
Calling around to different storage units to ask if we could film and they've all said no. (yeah)
So the guy saw the name it was like wait a second
Cancel the auction right there look I said all for this company of all of the auctions are canceled using up all of the
Auctions are cancelled. It's like for the rest of the week
I didn't roll them specifically and then I called a couple of other places that online
Said that they were having storage auctions the next morning, and they said that they were gonna have them so we were like okay
We'll just go tomorrow. They're abandoned. No they want us to buy them. Yeah, why is this so hard
Okay, good morning. It is day number two of having this u-haul and attempt number two at buying a storage unit for some reason
I'm wearing the same shirt as yesterday. I don't know why I did that
Isn't necessarily a lucky shirt. I'm nervous cuz yesterday I felt like way more ready for the auction and today
I'm just like and I buy a storage unit please
What are you like Oscar the grouch? - yes no right off the bat this one seemed a little bit more legit
There was more of a main office and there were five or six people already
Waiting there by the time we got there so I was feeling pretty good because it seemed like this auction was probably going to happen
Okay, guys, so we just signed in there seemed to be some serious bidders
Yes, like everyone had tool belts multiple locks on their belt. We've heard a lot of talk about $5,000
We've heard a lot of talk about washing machines like people our people are here to buy tyler kept practicing his like bidding
Call I'm gonna. I'm gonna wolf when I'm at a wheel so when we got there
We thought that there was supposed to be 14 units because that's what it said online
But then I overheard one of the people who worked at the storage place say that there were only five units up for auction
So we're gonna have to really try here yes
This is actually a this is high stake a little bit of a competition
so once the auction started
Everyone who is there got into a pretty small elevator and went up to see the first unit so basically how this worked is that?
The auctioneer cut off the lock and then opened up the storage unit and then everyone filed through with their
Flashlights and stuff so once everyone gets to take a look at that unit the auction starts right away 305
So the first one was actually kind of interesting there was a Kermit puppet
I saw a boogie board in the back a couple of
Skateboards and like an army backpack and it seemed like a few other people were also interested
I was a little hesitant
After a couple of bids to keep going though because I didn't want to be like the newbie who bought the very first unit that
We saw and there was another guy who seemed like he really wanted it, so we let him get it
And he bought up for like 275 bucks and immediately we were both like oh
Maybe we should have gotten that one
So the second storage unit was just an empty room with a few giant sets of chests of drawers and as soon as the auctioneer
Opened up the unit most people filed by and looked in and immediately
Started walking to the next unit in fact that seems to be kind of like the crowd
Dynamic at these live storage auctions whenever they would look inside the storage unit and not like what was in it
They would just walk away to the next unit yeah, they wouldn't even wait for the auctioneer in the bag
Please move on it sucks
And if you are someone who like doesn't mind lugging a lot of stuff around you might hang back and get like a less desirable
Storage unit for really cheap and in fact on the next storage unit the auctioneer opened it
and it was just like a
Giant pile of clothes and almost no one wanted it and so one guy hung back and got the whole thing like ten dollars
So after the second and third boxes were kind of duds. I started getting kind of nervous because there was only two left
So the auctioneer opened up the fourth storage unit and
Immediately I was intrigued in the unit was basically just like a giant shopping cart full of comic books there were some other things kind
Of like strewn about like a lot of books some clothes
It seemed maybe a little bit of dirt here there
So I was interested because I've heard that comic books have some value especially if they're older or unique or like well-preserved
But also comic books and books are easier to carry than something like a giant chest of drawers
Especially given that there was a shopping park right there
We could just load him up and wheel him out it seemed like some of the other buyers were interested as well
Not everyone some people walked away, but a few people hung back and kind of like got into the bidding with us
but after a couple of bids
I think they kind of just let us have it because we seemed like we wanted it so we ended up buying the whole unit
For 25 bucks, okay, so I'm walking up to our storage unit I just paid for it
It's happening
So after the option we took a look at our unit and realized there was a decent amount of trash on the ground
Oh my god
It's a little crazy in here
But I was really drawn to it because of all these comic books look at how many there are back there
Hopefully those are collectors additional comic books is those who want a bottom line with these abandoned storage units
You have 48 hours from when you buy it to clean it out?
Yeah, we have to clear this thing out, so we're gonna go to Home Depot
Get some garbage bags and gloves and just go to town
I'm actually really excited to get all of our treasures out of there
I am a little bit less excited about cleaning up the trash
That's in there as well
but I
Know that it'll be worth living in so something interesting about the way our
Storage unit was laid out is that once you open the door?
Whoever's unit it was
Positioned a book called like the treasures of the tomb of King Tut right on top of the shopping cart
It was kind of a warning like all ye who enter here leave mine alone which was interesting
But not that terrifying because you know it wasn't actually a tomb or I hope it wasn't at least but that said quickly afterwards
We did find a broken mirror on the ground. This is broken mirror. Yeah, that's not gonna
Break itself. No. I'm the problem and also a mask hanging from a pipe on the ceiling. What's that?
So that's a devil thing isn't it with what seemed like a woman's bikini top like hanging off of it
I don't like that thing. I'm gonna be honest
I don't think that we should keep that so that was a little weird
But we trudged along so we started sorting out the things that we should save there were a decent amount of male clothing items in
There a lot of it was workout gear, but there were a couple of pool items like an intricate denim jacket and a Sixers Jersey
Philadelphia, that's pie's favorite team. Oh that. I just put my head next to a bunch of hangers mr. Process
I took that as the first good omen of the
Storage unit there were also a lot of comics as we had seen before a lot of books and also a decent amount of
Mid-2000s porn I mean, I can't show you guys, but there's a lot of porn. I have a theory
This is like a guy that got married
So what kind of sword you getting here you put all his porn and his all his comic books in here just be like
That's where it is if I ever get the divorce and come back again again. Oh, that's a green spears
I should not take it out
But there was a lot of trash there were some pretzels and some very old power aids
Actually there were a lot of power AIDS. It was just everywhere
I spread my first bogey there something wet the ground and I just reached into it's like why is there food in here food and
Powerade it's like kind of weird actually oh, no he's a string is too much for me
So it took us a couple of hours to clean the whole unit out these are trash
This is books magazines and comics
This is clothes and that is Tyler and then we took our bags and our shopping cart down to the car
We did however leave the devil looking masks
We told the people in the main office that we couldn't get him down to be fair
He was wrapped around a pipe that was hanging from the ceiling so we were like yeah
We just can't get him so now we're gonna
Go home unload clear out the trash, and then we're gonna get the comic books appraised
I think that there are actually some serious treasures in there
I have thoroughly enjoyed this very new experience either way, but it would be cool if we did turn a profit
I mean there's definitely possibility
Okay, so we just got home and we are gonna start unpacking everything from the van into our garage. We've got a couple boxes
We're gonna like start taking out the books and magazines and comic books and categorizing them into different things
So we've got a lot of sorting to do so we've got this GoPro taped up that will hopefully
Record us doing all of that. Yes, so we'll just fast-forward through most of it for you guys
Yes
so in the end our haul was one bag of clothes a camera tripod a camera bag a backpack a cool Jersey an
Intricate denim jacket an Air Jordan hat a box of old
magazines two boxes of books including a couple of la public library books two boxes of comics a shopping cart a folding chair and
three bags of garbage
Looks like the power raid is leaking. Oh, that's nasty, but from the trash
Rises the treasure I also got all these free push pins
Oh my god from the floor you have a ton in there. Yeah, I can will be a tap dancer
Okay good first day of buying an abandoned storage unit technically it's our second day because we didn't have one yesterday
You're right. Good second day of buying our abandoned storage units we do have to get this stuff appraised, but so far
I'm pretty pleased I already felt pretty
Accomplished from just cleaning out an old storage unit and throwing a lot of stuff away
And the shopping cart seemed like a good find
But the comic book seemed like an obvious lead
So we wanted to go get them appraised so we have our two full boxes of comics
I just wanted to count through them all just to make sure I knew how many we had this is gonna take a while
Okay ty so how many did yours have about 215 same? I was 219, so we've got over
430 comics all together so we headed to House of Secrets which is a comic book store to get our comics appraised and
Potentially to sell them okay, so we're with Paul at a house of secrets in Burbank Paul. We've got a lot of comics
I noticed that yeah, we've got gold tubs, so we're just wondering what these are worth
and if you want any of them now Paul who is a comic book expert took one look at our pile and
Immediately said that he wasn't very hopeful just looking at them
We 90 stuff late many stuff
There's a few bucks from this period that do have some value that's very few unfortunately yet you have one right on top here
That's by the 20 L book the mid 90s of a kind of the comic book explosion
And as you can see
Everybody put him in a bag on board so all of them usually in a fairly great shape so you might have a few in
Here from this time period or you know maybe five to ten dollar book so you're not gonna find a spider-man lawn or a tent
That no a book or anything like that a twenty dollar book is pretty good
So we're just gonna have to go through them all unfortunately that's about the other way
Yeah, everything you gotta go through the conditioning of it
These are the ones that Paul likes and then these are the ones that Paul doesn't like as much. It's not that they're bad
It's just they don't really have much of a value to be on this video. They could still be good reads
We don't know that's what they're there for
So what effects the value of a comic book the most?
Condition the big killer for account books is water damage think about all that power 'if you open the storage
And there's a shopping cart full of these things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah shopping car shopping
I think a little shopping card shopping coach probably worth more liquor so from what Paul said
most of our haul
he would put in his like dollar book pile and the Batman ones he would sell for between like ten and thirty bucks so if
We had a comic book store
We could maybe have me like 300 bucks off of our haul
But given that we were the middlemen in this situation we sold our comic books for a hundred and ten bucks so we can
Scrounge up 15 bucks from someone else and we're breaking even
You can probably keep the two boxes and get 5 bucks apiece for those. What about the shopping cart?
Oh, I've seen the shopping cart you got your money back. Oh, yeah
Awesome, thank you. Thank you so much. I don't think you want that hand this desk
I think a big variable that we were learning very quickly is that we didn't have an easy way to sell any of this stuff
short of opening our own antique store we would have to
clean prep list
Sell and ship every individual item on eBay or something
So we decided to donate the clothes that we kept the sixers jersey and the denim jacket because they're pretty cool
And we returned the library books. We've got a few
Martial arts Michael Jordan, and then we've gots an atlas of holy places and sacred sites
We also have a this thing about reefs
I just want to find a book drop and deposit it because I don't want to get charged for whatever late fees have incurred
it's the last one I
Actually feel pretty happy yes
Oh returned them
And then we kept the shopping cart as well as the folding chair in the tripod so basically if we say that we paid fifteen
bucks for a shopping cart a Sixers jersey a tripod a bunch of vintage magazines and a little bit of pouring from the
Mid-2000s and a couple other bags and jackets and this chair then we broken even
But it's not just about like getting all of our money's worth
It's also about you know having the experience and we can keep a couple of mementos from it actually
We looked a little bit into the market price for shopping carts and they can go for over a hundred bucks
So we could definitely sell ours, but I think this could come in handy down the road
Oh, and all I'm very glad that we did this. It doesn't look like buying abandoned storage units is gonna
Be that profitable of a venture for us unless we really commit and like open up an antique store or something
I will say though that I got a very good adrenaline rush from the auction so this does make me want to go and
participate in more live auctions well
I just I want to go in and bade own stuff just have some good healthy competition with other buyers get in there
Just get in there in terms of storage units though
I'm open to getting another one maybe not in the near future, but like if the time was right
There's just a lot of cleaning involved
And I think in fact that's why people abandon them in the first place cuz they're like
I just don't want to have to clean this storage unit and I also didn't love encountering unknown devil masks or broken mirrors or
Threatening King Tut books, but you know the porn was okay
Thank you guys so much for watching if you liked that video make sure to smash that like button and if you want to see
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Thanks for watching Jacqueline, and I will see you guys next time