The storage unit and the journal that inspired my book IF I WERE YOU and The INSIDE OUT TRILOGY...

Back in Austin, Texas in 2009 my husband was going to school while I had left the corporate world behind. The Physical Therapy Clinic he was a PT at had gone under and we both knew to chase our dreams (his to be a doctor and me to keep writing) we had to find another way to make money.  Keep in mind this was YEARS before the Storage War type shows. So, I stumbled onto an article about buying and selling storage auctions. My husband decided to go for it and so it began for us….

He went off to an auction he found listed in the paper. The next thing I knew he'd bought a unit and I just knew he paid too much.  I was furious. We were broke. How could he spend that kind of money? Oh yes indeed, we had our own STORAGE WAR! It was an icy afternoon at our house. Well (just this once, he was right and I was wrong. Turns out we netted great money from that unit very quickly. We were lucky though because we didn't know what we were doing and there is skill to this biz. All units are not filled with profits and those that are do not always make them quickly. Needless to say though, we were hooked. We soon learned though that buying and selling units is dirty work. Really dirty. You go through these units and find disgusting things and try to figure out what is worth money. Well, we ended up with our house and garage filled to the rim constantly. 

One unit came along when my husband was feeling sick. He'd stumbled onto a journal, grabbed it and a blanket, and crashed on the couch. From there it was pretty funny. He’d sit up suddenly and say ‘Someone died next door and the police are there!’. Then later, ‘Oh my God, she’s pregnant again.’ We did a lot of laughing. Well, my husband decided then that I HAD to write a story about a storage unit with a mystery. He kept talking about it and talking about it until finally, I did. So, I'd say the journal was our best treasurer. And you know how much that unit cost us? One dollar. It was a huge unit and no one wanted it. It had a washer and dryer that was broken and just a lot of what looked like junk to be trashed. Back then that kind of thing happened. You could get dollar units and sometimes they turned out to be darn good profit. Now, post television shows, those units go for hundreds of dollars  and you'd never turn a profit. I'm going to start blogging about how to avoid overpaying for units and what really is worth money. However, for us, that one dollar unit, and that journal, were our real treasures. And so was seeing my husband read it like it was a gossp magazine!

Until my next post...

Lisa