The word treasure-hunting rarely evokes visions of going to self-storage facilities.
Self-storage facilities are buildings or structures where customers can store their personal property.
These items usually cannot be placed in the owners' homes and offices due to space limitations or particular physical storing requirements.
When Does a Self-Storage Facility Become a Potential Treasure Trove? People store their personal property in storage facilities and choose to pay for it because they deem it to be too valuable to be allowed to deteriorate in not-so-ideal storage conditions.
They can always choose to give them away or sell them but the fact that they chose to keep it themselves shows how much value is given to them.
Value is not necessarily limited to monetary equivalent.
It can also be sentimental value or historical value although the latter certainly has potentials to be equated to money value.
A self-storage facility can be a possible treasure trove during the rare instances that a rented unit is abandoned for some reason and remains unpaid for several months.
Unless the facility receives any communication from the owner why this is so and how he or she intends to settle the rent due, it has the legal right to auction the contents to the public.
This is where self-storage auctions come in.
Within the contents of the abandoned unit, there may be trash and treasure that can be found.
Self-Storage Auctions The self-storage facility encounters a problem when rented units are not being paid on time or not at all for several months.
Rental income is its only source of revenue.
Vacant units are already problematic enough because they fail to generate income.
An abandoned unit however is worse because the self-storage facility cannot offer the occupied unit to anyone else while remaining unpaid.
The abandoned unit therefore deprives the company both actual and potential income.
Self-storage auction is the legal way of setting the unit free from occupancy after accomplishment of specific steps to communicate with the owner.
Within a set number of months that the owner fails to communicate with the company for settlement of rental due, the self-storage facility can announce the holding of an auction.
The sale is an "as is deal", meaning that the winning bidder gets the contents in whatever condition they are in.
Positive Treasure Finds Since it is common for people to keep valuable possessions in self-storage units, it is highly possible that treasures can be found in them in the unfortunate situation that the owner fails to settle the unpaid rent.
There are instances that such possessions have been forgotten by the owner already because of certain life events.
There are also those which have not been properly endorsed to relatives before an untimely death.
It must be noted that the self-storage company will be relying on the contact data provided by the owners themselves.
The inability to contact the customer who has not been able to pay rent for some time or the inability to pay the rent puts the company in a legal position to hold an auction subject to specific conditions.
Who knows what treasure can be found in other people's unclaimed properties?