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.