Many people by now will be aware of the TV show Storage Wars/Hunters both UK and US version. These shows are great to watch as they show you the behind the scenes of what goes on in the storage business! Or does it?
When people think of Storage centres they may instantly get an image in their head of auctioneers walking round bidding off peoples belongings all the time! However this view is far from reality! At Outer Space Storage Bolton we don’t have quick speaking auctioneers going round selling off the none payers personal items! That may however be because our customers are brilliant and are none debtors so we have no need to auction off anyone’s items!
The actual reality of what happens to a storage unit when an owner can’t afford it is quite different than you may think. As you may or may not know as a payer of a storage unit you will have an obligation to pay for the rental of your unit. If you unfortunately can’t meet those obligations the items become right of lien of the storage centres company. So in other words we then have the right to hold the contents of the storage unit on hold until the person (hopefully!) pays off any debt!
However even then we still don’t get to the selling part! You would first receive your warning letters. Yes, that’s right we don’t just take of your items without telling you! Once a storage centre has gone through all the formalities of warning a renter and knowing they will not be receiving the payment it is the case of ‘What should we do with these items?’ As long as someone’s belongings remain within a storage unit it means they are losing money because it is a storage unit that they cannot use for someone else.
After all procedures have been gone through it comes to the part where we part ways with the owners items! And no, it doesn’t include an auction with rowdy people cat calling each other. It involves a closed auction with the contents going to the highest bidder by email. If the items don’t get sold it would then resort to finding a really nice disposal yard or maybe giving items to charity! The majority of the time we would not choose to sell the items. In fact we have a storage unit that we have had for 2 years that we still haven’t removed items from! That may be because they have a great fridge that comes in handy though . . .
We can safely say though however that shows like the Storage Hunters have helped generate a higher awareness of storage units. Even if it is sometimes a false representation!
We’ll even let you in on a little secret! We were contacted by the UK Storage Hunters to have someone film an auction over the course of 3 days! However we kindly refused, as we want our customers to know that their privacy is protected! Even if it means refusing a TV show. We could of made it big!
If you’re in need of a storage Bolton Unit please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us!
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