...I am the daughter of two collectors. Less kind people might refer to us as clutterbugs. It's apparently a recessive gene because my sister rearranges and purges all her stuff every six months and my brother upgrades his TV regularly, but doesn't hang on to stuff too much. But, my sister did turn me onto "Storage Wars" which is one of those shows where you think - really, a show about storage units? But, it fits that thing where it's interesting to watch the personalities and the guesses they make about the units and when they're right and find something worth money and when they're wrong and end up with a half empty box of diapers and some used porn.
I also have to tell you it confirms my worst fears about storage units. There are legitimate reasons and uses for such things, but I think just as often people have exceeded their space, they shunt stuff off to storage and then don't ever do anything with the stuff in there. And then forget to pay the bill.
But, there is one guy, Barry - they list him as "the collector" because he gets excited about units that may have something weird or unusual in there, rather than looking for things like jewelery or furniture or what-have-you. Most of these folks run consignment shops or work with other re-sellers. Barry, goes through the motions, hunting down the experts when he makes a find and getting the estimate. And often enough, he keeps it. I don't know what he does (or did) for his livelihood (and I don't need to) but this would be me. And this is why I do not have a career as a storage unit scavenger in my future.
Rants About New (and old) Things
