Submitted by Karmacozzy2005 t3_z688sp in RhodeIsland
My mother's storage unit in the Public Self Storage facility on Mineral Spring Ave in North Providence was sold last Monday (or Tuesday) with my father's ashes inside. We will pay a small reward for the return of his ashes and one football shaped bag containing family pictures. They sold before she could get to it. She's homeless in Springfield, ma and missed 2 payments after 5 years. Please help.
How do you get into auction buying? I find it a very interesting form of gambling, and I too would return any personal goods, what use are they to me in the first place?
Start small on eBay, Craigslist, Facebook marketplace. Start with things around your house. You have junk that will sell. This also teaches you the listing process if you sell online.
Then move to sourcing at yardsale and estate sales. You can jump right into storage auctions but you’re probably gonna bite off more than you can chew and get fed up with it.
You’re going to have a lot of junk to toss and you’ll need a lot of space, time, money, knowledge and consistency.
Especially for $5. Hell i'll buy almost anything for $5.
Did you reach out to the storage facility? If whoever bought it found something sentimental maybe they brought it back.,, or you could ask for contact information of who bought it??
We've tried. Long story, but they called her on Monday telling her it was going to be auctioned off if she didn't come get it. When she said she couldn't pay it for a few more weeks and asked if she could get his ashes first, they said she couldn't enter the unit anymore. But they would retrieve the ashes and pictures once the unit was opened for the sale, and the buyer would be informed they wouldn't be able to retain those items. They said they would call when they had the items. They never called back. She got an email the next day saying the unit sold for $5. They won't return her phone calls. I've tried calling. They won't return my calls. We contacted the local PD, and they said we can file a complaint. We're planning to do that tomorrow.
Oh no that’s awful :/
All that for five dollars… that’s a shame. They should have the decency to get the items back. I would go there!! Fingers crossed for you guys
Maybe try calling one of the news channels? I feel like channel 10 would be all over this.
Does the rental facility have a website or email address? I would attempt to keep contacting them. In the meantime definitely file a report and consider alerting the news.
Storage facilities unfortunately have predatory practices when it comes to non payment of units. I hope can retrieve your fathers remains.
I understand the urgency because of sentimental value but I think maybe a little patience until the holiday weekend is over could go a long way. Best of luck
I'm just afraid whomever bought it might chuck it, not realizing what it is. The seal has never been broken and my mom is very worried about that.
I can understand the stress this would cause. It also makes sense to me that you would try posting here in hopes of alerting the buyer.
Will you be able to show up in person tomorrow? Do you need someone to go for you?
They won't give you the name of the person who bought it but will contact them for you.
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They won't return any calls. Whenever we call it goes to a voice mailbox, we leave messages but get no responses. I'm just hoping whomever bought it sees this, or someone they know does.
Is there any chance you can go there? I feel like going in person is your best bet
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Yea no, we aren’t doing that.
It's the public self storage on mineral Ave., although they probably can't tell you who bought it.
Would it be possible to slip a note under the door of the unit with your contact information letting the buyers know about your situation?
You usually need a code or key to enter the premises
I don't know specifically how Public Storage does their unit auctions, but in general, once a buyer has paid for the unit all the contents in the unit are legally the buyers.
As you've already done, you can request the storage facility to request that the buyer hand over any personal belongings to them to give to you, but they buyer isn't bound by anything to actually do so. Repeatedly calling the facility won't do any good as you've found out.
At this point they are most likely just waiting on the buyer to get back to them about the items, if they even do so. Depending on how the buyer operates, they may not have even gone through the items yet. Usually they will just load up everything as they have a set time frame to have the unit empty and then go through it at a later date.
That's why we're working on involving police. They are not legally allowed to sell the unit knowing it contained the ashes. They should have contacted the PD to remove them first. We have emails showing we told them.
Did the police inform you of that? To my knowledge, that is not a thing.
This would definitely apply to guns, and they would be collected by PD at the time the unit contents are bought, but not remains.
It may be a waiting game, but I do hope you are able to recover your fathers remains and family photos from the buyer.
Yes, the desk officer told me that.
Do you know the unit number? My suggestion would be to contact the manager asap tomorrow and relay this info to them. If they have a heart, hopefully they can help.
I don't think they can legally dump the urn
Are you able to physically go to the storage unit tomorrow?
I'm hoping to. Hoping to get my car back today. Garage has had it since Wednesday. All the bad luck at once, you know.
I would contact corporate.
The town council members for that district are:
Ken Amoriggi
14 Birchwood Dr.
North Providence, RI 02904
ken@amoriggilaw.com
Stefano V. Famiglietti
8 Randall Rd.
North Providence, RI 02904
sfamiglietti@northprovidenceri.gov
And the councillor at large is:
Dino Autiello (President)
61 High Service Ave.
North Providence, RI 02911
dino.autiello@gmail.com
You might try emailing them to see if they can intercede with PSS on your behalf.
Thanks, I'll reach out
what storage facility was this?
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You have no idea the circumstances of this person’s life. It’s very easy to say a bunch of “what I’d do is…” from the comfort of your keyboard. You don’t know what other people are going through, and that includes OP.
Pay your bills
Oh, thank god you’ve solved the problem! If only everyone else was as smart as you!
Asshole
you’re a dick bro
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
You are a total piece of shit human being.
dirty_cuecas t1_iy0m9o6 wrote
Auction buyer here in New England. Any time an auction buyer buys a storage unit, we will return any personal items such as photos, documents, etc. We return them to the facility the auction was held at and they’ll typically contact the customer. We don’t get the customers information and they don’t give our information out to the former customer (I’m sure you can see why).
If your mom called and spoke to someone, chances are they gave whoever bought the unit a heads up that you’re looking to get the ashes back. It helps us auction buyers and the locations to have a good relationship so I’m sure they told whoever bought the unit.
The seal might get broken. Once we buy units we go through them thoroughly to see if there is anything of value that we can sell at our flea market sites or online.
When did you say the auction was? I was not in RI this month but if the unit had a lot of stuff in it, the auction winner probably has a week to remove everything, maybe longer. So they might not have gotten to it yet.
Also, this goes to everyone, please be careful about what you put in a storage facility. I’ve won enough auctions to know that people don’t think they’ll get their stuff auctioned off because they won’t miss payments. But by law, depending on the state, it only takes 2 or 3 months before it goes to auction.