Storage unit auctions let people bid on junk with the hope of finding treasure

Prologue: A taupe plastic tub sits in the stale darkness of unit No. 2271 in a self-storage facility in Hyattsville.

In the grand scheme of Things, the tub is nothing.

(Michael Byers) - The modern self-storage industry began in the 1960s and has grown ever since, almost exclusively in America.

It takes up a speck of the United States’ 2.3 billion square feet of rentable self-storage space, which, if parceled out equally among the populace, would give each American about 7.38 square feet. This means we could all stand comfortably — in uniform rows like tubby terra-cotta warriors — within the self-storage lockers and hangars of America. Around us would be junk: ours and others’, swapped and inherited and bought for pocket change, bundled in bags and baskets and tubs and jugs, important enough to keep locked up and then sometimes trivial enough to surrender to receivership after we don’t pay our rental fees.

That surrendered junk is routinely sold to strangers who drive from auction to auction, looking for deliverance in the detritus. On a Monday in August, starting at 10 a.m., they drive in a caravan of sorts through Prince George’s County — through knots of on-ramps, around weedy medians, past the coin laundries, the nail salons, the charter bus lots, the mattress outlets, the Hunan buffets. Until 3 p.m. there’s an auction every hour on the hour, a series of archaeo-illogical troves up for grabs.

10 a.m. Lanham

The corrugated teal door rumbles upward, and a herd of people bob and crane for a view. They flick flashlights over the dim interior of the unit. Heaps of dusty clothes, a couple of bike tires, an undergrowth of tangled power strips, a digital-camera box that may or may not contain a digital camera.

“Anybodygimmeeahunnerd?” says the auctioneer, who works for a Maryland-based private auction company contracted by storage companies. He’s leading today’s suburban safari to six facilities.

Someone offers $100.

“Okayhowbout125? Onetwenty-five-okay150? Onefifty175? Oneseventy-fivehowbout2? Twohowbouttwoandaquarter? Okaytwoandahalf? Twoand-ahalf300? Three hunnerd. Threefifty? Threeseventyfive­thankyou. Four? Four, 425. Fourfifty? Fourfifty. Fourseventyfive. Anybodygimme500even? Five-hunnerd? No? Soldfourseventyfive. Name?”

“Winters.”

The contents of Unit 612 — which five seconds ago belonged to some anonymous person who was far behind on his rental payments — are now the property of Alfred Winters, a District cab driver propelled by fallow summer fares to seek extra money in storage. Winters stays behind to sign a paper as the rest of the herd moves onward through the maze of storage, like mice after cheese, to Unit U3. A facility employee cuts the lock and raises the door, revealing a Crossbow home-gym contraption and a boombox. Someone was using U3 as his personal workout space.

After 15 seconds of bidding, the unit goes for $20.

“From here we’re going to Brentwood,” the auctioneer says to the herd. “Brentwood at 11 a.m.”

11 a.m. Brentwood

The people on this run look like trailer-park roughnecks and country-club wives. They are black and white and Hispanic. They walk with canes and sit in strollers. There are tattoos and there are fancy watches, sometimes on the same person. The herd seems to be, in other words, a random sampling of America.