'Storage Wars' strikes it rich with colorful stars
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY
HOMELAND, Calif. — If fame is the principal currency of American popular culture, then auctioneers Dan and Laura Dotson are getting rich quick.
By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY
Storage stars: Auctioneers Dan and Laura Dotson sell off repossessed storage units on the A&E series Storage Wars. Fans come out as much to see the couple as to bid on goods hoping to find something valuable.
By Dan MacMedan, USA TODAY
Storage stars: Auctioneers Dan and Laura Dotson sell off repossessed storage units on the A&E series Storage Wars. Fans come out as much to see the couple as to bid on goods hoping to find something valuable.
Mini-Storage property management
Increase traffic to your facility
www.extraspace.com/3plus
Compare Self Storage Facilities in
Your Area - Rates from $19 / Month!
www.SpareFoot.com
Little else can explain why a large crowd has gathered here at Freedom Storage in the rugged desert between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. While months ago only a handful would show up for such events, today 119 souls have come to watch the Dotsons sell off the abandoned refuse of shattered lives.
"Here are the rules, folks," says Dan, who along with his wife runs American Auctioneers and steers each episode of A&E's new hit Storage Wars (Wednesday, 10:30 ET/PT). "Listen up good."
-
TREASURES: See what stuff people dig up
-
PHOTOS: Behind the scenes
And listen they do. The attention the Dotsons command is impressive; tattooed toughs are hushed by Dan's barrel-chested patter and Laura's impossibly sunny demeanor. Later, during the drive to lunch, the couple will get pulled over by police — who want their photos taken with them.
Today, it's the suburbs of L.A. Tomorrow it might be Las Vegas. Whenever they hear the call of a delinquent storage locker, the Dotsons hop in their black Escalade and cruise to the next battle that finds first-timers and veterans bidding on mystery contents they can look at but not touch.
"We just had to meet these Storage Wars guys," says Sirenia de la Cruz, holding 2-month-old Benjamin. She plans to join the bidding fray. "It seems a bit risky, but life's a risk. Besides, who knows what you might find?"
TV executives know. Ratings. Storage Wars was A&E's top-rated non-fiction show for 2010, averaging 2.4 million viewers. And there are now so many shows trading on this treasures-in-trash theme that there's a risk good titles will run out before concepts do. Auction Kings, Auction Hunters, Pawn Stars, Pawn Queens, American Pickers —all pique natural curiosity about what things are really worth, while stirring that needle-in-a-haystack fantasy familiar to anyone who has ever trolled a swap meet.
Credit much of Storage Wars' success to its offbeat protagonists: chatty Darrell Sheets, always looking for the "wow factor"; stylish Barry Weiss, in it to score unique antiques; taciturn Dave Hester, out to stock his secondhand shop; and couple Jarrod Schulz and Brandi Passante, who bicker their way to big scores. It doesn't hurt that Darrell and Dave dislike each other, while the cast generally thinks Barry's nuts.
Another ingredient is common to these reality-TV recipes: the economy. "Watching these shows is like watching the lottery," says Wendy Woloson, author of In Hock: Pawning in America From Independence Through the Great Depression. "People like discovering treasures and wondering about the value of what they own. Plus, as with Cops and Dog the Bounty Hunter, there's the appeal of seeing the darker side of the human condition."
Undercurrent of misery
The stars of these pawn-auction shows are sometimes uncomfortably close to that reality.
"I'm seeing twice the store traffic I ever did, and sometimes it hurts," says Nikki Ruehl, co-owner of Naperville (Ill.) Jewelry & Loan, who along with Minda Grabiec is the focus of TLC's Pawn Queens. Ruehl recalls a man who came in with a tool set. "He'd lost his job, his wife and his house, and needed money for food. He broke down and cried."
Cari Cucksey of Northville, Mich., who runs estate sales and is the star of HGTV's Cash & Cari, often is the bearer of bad news.
"People are moving, downsizing or divorcing, and the rest of us are looking for a bargain," she says. "Shopping this way is cheaper than buying new, and it's green because you're actually recycling. But there are times I have to warn the sellers that what you think something is worth may not really be what it's worth. That can be upsetting."
Storage Wars deliberately keeps away from the back stories behind each abandoned storage locker. "All you see is misery there, and I didn't want to trade on that," says executive producer Thom Beers, whose Original Productions is also behind adventure-reality hits Deadliest Catchand Ice Road Truckers.
But Beers' new show doesn't sugarcoat the drudgery inherent in this line of treasure hunting. Rob Sharenow, senior vice president of programming at A&E, was pulled in by the way Storage Wars puts a sober spin on that get-rich-quick dream. "We go out of our way to show that you have to go through an awful lot of garbage to maybe find gold," he says.
That will be made abundantly clear during today's location shoot. Six units auctioned off, one more dismal than the next. In fact, the overwhelming amount of stuff at this facility alone makes one wonder just what's inside the 2.16 billion square feet of storage space in this country. (Texas leads the pack with 4,500 facilities; Washington, D.C., brings up the rear with 20.)
Annie Leonard is convinced large-scale hoarding will become a thing of the past. "There is a coming paradigm shift in our relationship with stuff," says Leonard, author and host of the book and blog called The Story of Stuff.
"Three reasons," she says. "One, quality. We're tired of things breaking all the time. Most of us remember growing up with one toaster, and we want to go back to that. Two, we're fed up with clutter. Our homes are smaller, and we can't afford to have that junk room our parents did. And three, with less money, we think more. We join car-sharing clubs or repair that appliance instead of buying a new one. This is all good news."
Not so fast, says Tim Dietz, spokesman for the Self Storage Association, which represents roughly 46,000 businesses. He says storage represents a good option for those who perhaps lost their home and want to hold onto possessions while they solve their financial problems.
"It's a shame and frustrating that our legitimate real-estate sector is cast in a negative light with shows like (Storage Wars), because auctions are a small part of what happens," Dietz says. He adds that rules vary by state, but typically renters have two to three months before their things are sold off. "Less than 1% of units end up in that situation."
Dietz does offer the show one compliment: "When we do have auctions, I understand there are now more bidders than in the past. Now, that's a good thing."
'Let's start the bidding'
Today's bidders are stacked six deep around storage locker C-2. When the metal door rolls up, everyone cranes for a look. The rules are no touching and no venturing into a locker. So out come the flashlights. People look in. They look at each other. But mostly they look at the stars of Storage Wars, hoping to catch a read off one of these pros.
There's not much to see. C-2 is a jumble of items covered with dust. There's a gold-leaf frame with no picture. A broken car seat. Maybe an air compressor.
"Here we go, folks. Do I hear $100?" says Dotson, as his wife adds, "Let's start the bidding."
Weiss thinks he has spotted something, and the price rises quickly in $50 increments. Weiss wins at $850. The locker door is shut, and a temporary lock slapped on. As the crowd shuffles to the next unit, two men in torn jeans mutter to each other that they believe later on the show's producers will stock C-2 with goodies to make for better TV.
It's much the same story at the other lockers. The drama isn't offered up by the storage units, but rather by sideline action. Over at C-14, which features a toy rocking zebra and random old furniture, Freedom Storage manager Lisa Kerr suddenly announces that Weiss' prized hot rod has just been hit by a garbage truck.
Weiss is genuinely furious and almost shoves a cameraman who insists on keeping the video rolling. But the car is fine. Weiss, still seeing red, corners a producer: "Are we that hard up for material that we need to do this (crap)?"
Schulz snickers. "Barry's been dishing it out, so it's time for him to get some," he says, alluding to an incident when Weiss passed off dog treats as beef jerky.
The crowd loves the gag. They know their Storage stars. During one auction, a woman yells at Schulz to check with his wife before bidding, a jab at the henpecked nature of the couple's relationship.
The rest of the units go quickly. One room packed with an old La-Z-Boy chair and a dresser goes not to the cast but to John Delaney and girlfriend Tanya Lewis of nearby Yucaipa. Delaney, an out-of-work probation officer, says, "This sounded fun, and maybe there's some money in it."
Two other storage units have histories that may hint at their contents. One, says Kerr, was filled up with an assortment of mattresses and broken wood "and then never paid for." (Trash?) The other, which is chock-a-block with tools "belonged to someone who had a heart attack, and I can't get his family to pay the rent on the unit." (Treasure?)
The first sells for $250 to someone who then slinks away. The second goes for $1,700 to Alfred Vilas of Riverside, an unemployed accountant who also hopes to make this his new line of work: "I know people who can help me sell off good tools."
With the auctioneering done and the crowds gone, Weiss dons gloves and dives into the dirty work that is unit C-2. For the next hour, he's a human excavator in a sea of junk. Out come broken printers, old TVs, baseball cards.
"Baseball cards and porn, that's what most lockers have. Don't ask me why," Passante says with a sigh as her husband looks on, shaking his head as Weiss throws a dusty Xbox console onto the hot asphalt.
"This is so frustrating," Schulz says. "Barry's crazy. That might have sold at my secondhand store. But he's only looking for that one great thing. He doesn't care about the rest. It's hard to watch."
Weiss keeps digging. Cigarette lighters. Rags. Nails. A large bra.
"Hey, Jarrod, I tell you what," says Weiss, his face wet with sweat. "Give me $350, and we'll split it all."
Before Schulz can answer, his wife barks, "No!"
Schulz shrugs and smiles. Weiss knows this is one storage war he has lost.
Posted 1/27/2011 8:19:42 PM | Updated 1/28/2011 7:04:53 PM
Please wait while we process your request
Please wait while we retrieve the user's information
Bio
Your bio is currently empty. Now is a great time to fill in your profile.
This profile is private.
This profile is only shared with friends.
This profile is under review.
25 comments
Sort:
Name withheld
daryl
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore daryl. Show Details
Justification for my choice to shut off my cable. Reality shows are such crap.
Name withheld
wrrn_savage
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore wrrn_savage. Show Details
Absolutely love this show, as reality fare goes, it's top notch. No Snookis or housewives.
Name withheld
JayDubIII
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore JayDubIII. Show Details
Typical of the vast wasteland TV has become. Between the reality shows of cable and the brain dead formula shows on commercial TV, it's left discerning watchers with very little to choose from.
Name withheld
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld
mindcrime
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore mindcrime. Show Details
I have seen this show and it baffles me. I think it would be much better if they at least addressed the story behind the locker. From a viewer's standpoint, I saw an episode where a locker contained a coin collection. What kind of person, no matter how bad their situation, wouldn't come down a get cash? At the very least they could spend it. I need to understand how that happens to prove that the show didn't put them there to "script" the show for ratings.
Name withheld
This comment was left by a user who has been blocked by our staff.
Name withheld
mrkeepingitreal
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore mrkeepingitreal. Show Details
It's an interesting show, but none of the people are likable. Pawn Stars is much better and has more interesting items.
Name withheld
pacificbreeze1
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore pacificbreeze1. Show Details
I can't decide whether I like this show or not yet. That Dave guy is the MOST annoying reality show person I've ever seen and have not yet set this program up on my DVR because of him. If he would leave, then I'd be OK with it.
Name withheld
duanekimball
This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore duanekimball. Show Details
I've watched this show. I would be a
little more interesting if they spent some more time on building the
characters by seeing them outside of the auction site.
It's interesting for now.
Please wait while we send the email.
Email This
E-Mail
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
FriendFeed
LinkedIn
MySpace
Copy to Clipboard
Reddit
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Tumblr
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz
Score
vote upvotes up
vote downvotes down
Mini-Storage property management
Increase traffic to your facility
www.extraspace.com/3plus
Compare Self Storage Facilities in
Your Area - Rates from $19 / Month!
www.SpareFoot.com
What Do You Think?
To leave a comment, you need to sign up.
Sign up Log in