6 Strange Things Found In Storage Units

April R.
March 5th, 2023

When someone defaults on their storage unit rent, the owners of the facility have the right to auction off the contents to the highest bidder. Oftentimes the buyer will purchase the secured unit before cutting the lock and seeing what’s inside.

Imagine the surprise of these treasure hunters when they discover some of the strangest items in their newly acquired troves.

#1 An Electric Chair The circumstances are still unclear, but according to Rentcafe, an electrical execution device ended up in a personal storage unit at Oz Moving & Storage, a company that has facilities in New York, Northern New Jersey, and California. There is, undoubtedly, a fascinating story behind the chilling discovery, but that remains to be seen.

#2 An Amputated Leg

A North Carolina man who bought a barbeque smoker from an abandoned storage unit at auction was pretty shocked when he found a human leg inside of it! According to the BBC, the man called the police, but once it was determined that the leg had not been removed as part of a crime, it was sent to a funeral home where the owner, discovered to be Mr. John Wood, could pick it up. Mr. Wood had his leg amputated in 2004 after a car accident and was keeping it in the storage unit so he could be buried with it after he died.

#3 A Dead Body

In 2012, a Florida woman revealed the whereabouts of her deceased mother’s body in a deathbed confession to her daughter. According to the Tampa Bay Times , when 95-year-old Ann Bunch died in a nursing home, her daughter, Bobbie Barnett Hancock, hired someone to help her transport the body from the morgue to a storage unit. Although Bobbie claimed she was kept from burying her mother’s body due to poor weather conditions, her ex-son-in-law doesn’t buy it. He claims the unusual arrangement was likely a result of Bobbie’s hoarding tendencies.

#4 Cockroach Collection

Yes, cockroaches are survivors and the discovery of a collection of cockroaches left in a storage unit proves just that. Why anyone would make collecting cockroaches their hobby is beyond logical reason, but someone did.

#5 The First Superman Comic

In 2011, a man contacted collectables expert, Mark Balelo in hopes of selling a rare find. The man had bought the contents of a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley where he found Action Comics No.1—the first-ever Superman Comic—inside. The comic book was later discovered to have been stolen from actor, Nicholas Cage’s home 11 years prior.

#6 A Giant Wooden Horse

According to Rentcafe, a 7-foot-tall wooden horse was found in a storage unit in the UK, and no one knows where it came from or what it was used for. Speculations lead most to believe the giant horse is a theater prop, perhaps for a play about the Trojan war.

There’s no telling what treasure or tale an abandoned storage unit may hold, and finding out is half the fun of working in the self-storage industry.

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