Storage Units Are Not for the Faint-Hearted

Okay. So now you have been brave and purchased your first storage unit. You have high hopes and dreams. The number one being that you will be able to sell the stuff for a profit! You have it to your home, garage, or barn. This is where the feelings of being overwhelmed surface. It is one thing to have a "ton" of your own stuff, but it can be overwhelming to have a "ton" of stuff that once belonged to someone else. You have absolutely no idea what you will find in the boxes.

Sorting through a storage unit of stuff is not for the faint-hearted. REMEMBER you are dealing with items from someone else's life. They may not have the same values as yours. You may want to protect your children from view points that may not be the same as yours by not letting them go through the stuff. If you are a person that is easily shocked, you probably don't want to be in the business of buying and reselling units. The reading material that you find in storage boxes may not be the kind you would allow in your house.

I remember in the early days of my adventure there was one unit we labeled "The Porn Unit." Oh my, it was a shocker. Everything in the storage unit was neatly boxed and the boxes were stacked high. I won the bid for $25.00. I was sure we would find a lot of good stuff to sell. Probably everything in the unit would have sold, but I WAS NOT WILLING to sell it. There were boxes of porn material. Then there was more of it interspersed in the boxes of regular household stuff.

Now here is another valuable lesson. When going through a unit, if you find questionable literature and items that you want to destroy, put them all in one trash sack or area. Don't spread them out through the general garbage. That way you know exactly where the stuff is that needs to be burned because you don't want to put in the curbside trash for some kid to find and be warped for life! This leads to another valuable lesson.

Magazines DO NOT burn EASILY! Don't think you can drop pounds of magazines into the trash barrel, drop a match, and they will just disappear in flames. It doesn't happen. You just about have to burn them one at a time. If you are planning to shred them, you better have one more heavy-duty shredding machine because they will burn up the cheap ones.

Well this unit was not a total loss. It did contain many good items that I was willing to sell. Collectibles from this unit convinced me that there was good money to be made on eBay. Between the eBay sales and the garage sale, I made a really nice profit. Though I must admit, my hourly wage was significantly lower because it took to much time to burn the magazines.

Coming in the next posting ----- Watch out for the rocks!