Blessing?
When one man found a ridiculous amount of money in a storage unit, he was happy, to say the least. That is until he heard someone knocking on his door. To his surprise, it was the police. And he was unprepared.
Putting down the last bid on the storage container that was a blessing in disguise -- or a curse waiting to be unleashed -- he stumbled upon the pile of cash he thought was his big break. But the police had other plans.
Thrill Of The Game
The man was getting into his routine. He felt right at home bidding on these storage units at the auction.
He was throwing his cash at the containers that he couldn't afford. It was a risk, but he'd heard stories about others finding huge success with rare finds, so he had hope. Some of these stories even mentioned people opening their units to find vintage cars.
So Far So Good
Being inspired by these stories, the man had found humble success so far by selling off units' contents for a small profit. It was a lot of effort though, with the labor of sifting through garbage and cleaning the items to sell.
The man had become inpatient. He needed his break and if it wasn't in the next storage unit he would give up.
Bidding Against The Crowd
Joe was outside the unit with a crowd of people who he was going to have to bid against. The unit was 75 sq. ft. and meant it was too large for anyone to see anything that wasn't in plain sight. There was a heap of things from a 1 bedroom apartment.
This unit was good for those looking for furniture. There was a couch, chair, dining set, bicycles, and sports equipment. The unit was not good if you wanted to spend a couple of hundred dollars.
Winning Or Losing
Joe really enjoyed taking part in the auction. The parts you see on TV, like the intensity and bidding wars, were fun for Joe. He loved nothing more than to beat out a competitor and win the unit. He just had to be mindful of his budget -- which he didn't always stick to.
He kept repeating the words in his head -- don't put up money you really can't afford to lose. He was lucky, he hadn't found out the hard way yet.
Losing Self-Control
Joe felt like he was losing his self-control on this unit. The container was packed wall to wall with things he wanted to have a look at. He realized he wouldn't be able to do this if the woman in the crowd kept outbidding him.
The container's price started at a pricey $100. This was a lot to start off a bid, but then again the container was stuffed full. Joe and the woman kept outbidding each other again and again. Just how long could these two last?
Snapping Out Of It
After bidding $350, he felt confident she wouldn't go any higher, but it kept climbing... $400 went by, then $450. Finally, the bid ended at $500.
Joe snapped out of the adrenaline rush that bidding gave him and thought about what he had just done... he needed there to be something worthwhile in the locker as he was the one left with the locker for a whopping $500!
Hidden Treasure
Almost the entire crowd walked away from the unit now. They didn't win anything so they didn't stick around. There were still a few stragglers who were interested to see what the winner would find in his new unit.
To their surprise, they really wished they had won the bidding war when they saw what Joe emerged with.
Better Be Something Of Value
As Joe sauntered into the container, he noticed the old furniture he'd seen before. There was enough space between them to squeeze through. Joe was concerned, all this furniture wouldn't nearly cover the cost of the unit.
There had to be something of value here somewhere. Joe started his search for hidden treasure, hoping to find a big break.
The Safe
Then, suddenly, something caught Joe's eye. There was an old container on the ground in the corner of the unit. Joe tried to pry it open but couldn't manage, the safe was secured.
Joe called a friend with a drill and when they finally managed to pry it open, neither he nor his friend could have guessed what they'd uncover inside this mysterious safe.
Breaking the Lock
Joe drilled deep into the lock to force it open. When he finally broke through, he carefully took the lid off.
Joe was surprised to see a collection of old VHS tapes, and got to his feet and started to pull them out. Underneath the tapes was a note, but when he read it a chill went up his spine.
Mysterious
The note simply read “don’t” in rough handwriting. Joe inspected the old videotapes one by one and noticed that some were dated, but there was no other information written on the labels. He suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched.
He turned to look behind him, but he was all alone in the storage container.
Investigation
You see, all things were not going to be peaches and cream for Joe and his extraordinary find. Barely 2 hours into his discovery there was a knock on the door and soon men in uniforms were swarming all over the container.
Joe’s elation was short-lived, just what had he gotten himself involved in? There was something sinister afoot. So, just what had Joe found?
A Windfall
The safe was stuffed with bundles of yellowed wax paper. Joe carefully unwrapped the first bundle and was astonished to find $50 bills. Joe couldn’t believe his eyes as he unwrapped parcel after parcel, he had never seen so much money!
But just how much money was there? Who did it belong to? And why were the authorities so interested?
The Evidence
Joe realized that in his exaltation he had sent photos to his girlfriend and also uploaded the photos of the contents of the safe to pretty much every social media site. No wonder the police were here. He still hadn’t been able to count all the cash, but he knew it was enough to roll in… So far he was up to $1 million.
He dragged himself away to talk to one of the officers waiting for him, but as Joe would soon find out, the police weren’t the only ones interested in the contents of the safe.
Dirty Money
All in all, there was $7.5 million stashed away in a few safes around the containers. Everything from nickels to $100 bills and pink slips for cars.
There was just one gigantic problem, the original owner had gotten wind of the find and had hired some top-notch lawyers to get back his fortune. Joe was in trouble.
Questions
Almost as soon as Joe had found the huge amount of cash, he started to receive threats and things started to take a frightening turn. What had started out as amazement and the find that dreams are made of had quickly started to become a living nightmare.
Questions raced through Joe’s mind as he lay in bed at night: Who had hidden so much money in a storage container? And why hadn’t they come to collect it before now? And what was on the VHS tapes?
Threats
Everything started moving extremely quickly after the police arrived. Soon after, Joe got a call from the lawyers telling him in no uncertain terms that he must return the money but that he could keep $600,000 as a finder’s fee.
Joe had some quick thinking to do, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to tangle with the original owner of the safe.
The Tapes
Joe had been told in no uncertain terms to leave everything as he had found it until the case wound up, but a man’s curiosity could only be kept at bay for so long. He had to know what was on the tapes.
One sleepless night, he carefully opened the plastic bag they had been sealed in, and popped one into an old VCR and pressed play.
Nightmarish Scenes
As Joe tells it, he witnessed something that made his blood run cold on those tapes. And now that he had watched them, he could never unsee them again. Scene after scene played in his mind and haunted his nightmares.
He tried to reason to himself that the tapes were fake, meant to intimidate anyone who found the enormous amount of money. But he wasn’t so sure.
Haunted
Joe wrestled with a dilemma. If the owner of the safe knew that the tapes had been found, would they come after him? Should he just keep quiet? Did they already know he had seen them?
Night after sleepless night, the images plagued him. So, what had he seen on the tapes?
What He Discovered
Joe’s curiosity had finally led him here, and he had discovered something he certainly wished he hadn’t. What was on the mysterious tapes? We might never know. He refuses to disclose what he had seen, but all we know is that now he was well and truly frightened for his life.
Was all that money really worth crossing these people? And did they even know that they had left the tapes in the safe?
The Law on His Side
After consulting with his friends Joe learned that in the state of California once a unit had been sold, the contents were no longer owned by the delinquent tenant. He had full rights to keep anything in the unit, after all, he had purchased it fair and square.
But the Lawyers were not going to back down that easily.
How Bad Would it Get?
Thinking that they were doing Joe a service, they upped the finders fee to $1,200,000 and they were playing hardball. Who knew what these people were capable of? Joe began wondering just how someone forgets $7.5 million dollars in a delinquent storage rental.
Not someone good it seemed. But how bad would things get?
Returning a Fortune
So would he only get 1.2 million? That’s a huge amount of money in anyone’s book, but still not quite like the huge figure that he had just felt in his hands while unpacking wad after wad of money. He didn’t like the fact that he was being strong-armed but there was also the moral dilemma. It was now his money, but he didn’t do a thing to earn it.
Perhaps he should give it back? The thought was not sitting well with him.
A Fair Deal
After much deliberation and amongst near threats, Joe decided that splitting the money straight down the middle would be a fair split.
After all, the now previous owners had left the container unpaid for a lot more than a couple of months, in fact, almost a year, without responding to the letters sent by the store owners, and that debt was exactly why the auction had happened.
Cover Your Losses
A storage owner says, “I really don’t make much money out of auctions – it’s to try to cover our expense. 90 percent of the time I don’t cover my losses. One unit may have cost me $600 and the person bids at $400, so my revenue has still suffered a loss.”
“An unpaid unit does not make any money. The sooner the delinquent tenant can be moved out, the sooner a paying tenant can move in.”