Gambling on the unknown: Trash or treasure?

The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.) (MCT) - On April 21, 1986, host Geraldo Rivera took 30 million viewers into the basement of an abandoned Chicago hotel and opened Prohibition-era gangster Al Capone's mysterious secret vault on live TV _ only to find a lot of dirt and a few empty bottles that may or may not have contained bootleg booze.

Much the same thing happened in Fort Wayne, Ind., two weeks ago, with considerably more rewarding results for people who find enjoyment _ and sometimes even profit _ in gambling on the unknown.

"You're bidding on what you don't see, because you never know what you might find. I once bid $75 on a box that had half a stick of deodorant in it. I do this as a hobby, not for income," said a man named Dave as he waited for manager Matthew Kindness to auction off the contents of seven of the 600 units at Fort Security Self Storage, on Contractors Way in Fort Wayne.

Dave didn't want his last name in the newspaper for fear somebody might resent his eagerness to benefit from others' indifference or misfortune.

Welcome to a common but little-known ritual that is a cross between an old-fashioned auction and a high-tech garage sale.

There are 50,000 self-storage facilities in the United States _ 1,200 in Indiana _ and all of them regularly sell the contents of units rented by people who for whatever reason fall seriously behind in their rent, said Tim Dietz, vice president for communications and government for the Virginia-based Self-Storage Association.

"It's really our members' only remedy for deadbeats. They need to get their lockers back," Dietz said.

That's where people like Dave come in: people who scour the newspapers for sale notices, then drive for miles _ often with a trailer in tow _ to bid hundreds of dollars for stuff they can't even see.

Although Fort Security customers were given a sneak peek at the units' visible contents before the auction, nobody was allowed to inspect all the contents before making a bid. It is still private property, after all.

So savvy bidders have developed a kind of sixth sense, basing their willingness to buy things hidden in boxes, under mattresses or at the back of the locker on the basis of what they can see once the door is opened.

It's an inexact science at best.

"Maybe we can start the bidding at $1,000?" Kindness said _ tongue planted firmly in cheek _ as he stood in front of a locker apparently packed with clothes, a beat-up bicycle and an old air conditioner that might or might not work.

"What, $1,000 to clean out your unit for you?" somebody shouted back.

The contents _ whatever they were _ sold for $380.

Sometimes, the rewards are more obvious. Dave paid $300 for a unit containing steel storage shelves, a microwave oven, automobile exhaust system and 12 tires _ mounted on gleaming aluminum Lexus wheels.

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"I just like to take stuff home and go through it," said Roland Hanaman of Roanoke, Ind., who attends at least three self-storage auctions annually. On this day, he bid $350 after seeing furniture, a mixer and a lot of unopened Pampered Chef kitchen supplies _ an indication the unit's unseen contents might have value, too.

J. Coker came to the auction hoping to bid on a cedar chest he had seen during his preview. But the owner of that locker _ and five other owners _ paid their overdue rent at the last minute.

Coker didn't bid on anything else, but said he wasn't disappointed. "You just never know until the doors open. Once on the East Coast I unexpectedly ended up with a coin collection still in the mint envelopes." By the end of the day, Fort Security had raised about $2,000 _ far less than the delinquent rent, Kindness said _ and Dave had accounted for nearly half of it. He and the other high bidders signed the necessary paperwork and made arrangements to get their winnings home, which is where the fun really begins.

Dietz, for example, said one bidder unwittingly bought a woman's ashes. "And I heard about a sale in California where somebody found an alligator and rattle snakes," said Kindness, who stages auctions every three months or so _ but not before giving tenants every chance to pay their bills and keep their belongings.

Kindness says such auctions will only become more common should the economy continue to worsen. "But we're in the storage business, not the auction business," he said. "We want people to keep their things." But if they can't, at least one person's misfortune will be somebody else's adventure.

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© 2008, The News-Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Ind.).