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Sunday, June 9, 2019
My best and worst storage unit auction buy
I was hoping I could find a video of a Sleekcraft by Nescher 23 foot jet boat, like the one I bought at a storage unit auction in Huntington Beach in 2007. This not only looks like the one I bought, this looks like the very same boat. It's that close. The exterior seats had some tears, but were in a lot better shape, but otherwise, this looks identical. I looked at the timing of this video. This, possibly, could be the exact boat I boat I bought, it looks that close. Crazy
From 2003 to to 2007, I got stuck in the the taxi business. I came out of full homelessness in 2003, got my driver's license straightened out, got my taxi permit again, and went from being a guy living in the bushes and working in a restaurant at a mall, to a taxi driver working 7 days a week and sleeping my cab. I planned to save up for 4 or 5 months, and then rent a room in a decent apartment and get back on track.
Unfortunately, a month after I got going again, the taxi company took out the old CB radios we used to communicate, and put in the new dispatch computers. I had just got back in the swing of things, I figured out which nightclubs were best which nights, and was making about $400 week for two weeks straight. Then, literally from one day to the next, our business dropped to almost nothing, because of the new technology. I struggled, like every other driver, to pay $550 or 600 every week for my taxi, and pay another $300 a week in gas. All I had after that was food money for quite a while. 12 hour days turned to 14, then 16, then 17 or 18 hours, six days a week, and only 8 or 9 hours on my "day off." I got a cheap motel room one night a week, bought a pizza, watched a little TV, then slept for 12 hours straight and did it all over.
I made a little extra money buying storage units at auctions, and reselling the stuff, but not enough to leave the taxi business. By June of 2007, I was burned out, I was having serious health issues, and looking for an escape from the taxi business. One day there was an auction at the place where I had my storage unit in Huntington Beach, California. I parked my cab, and joined the other 15 people walking around to bid on units.
In the parking area right below my second floor unit, was a boat, one full of clothes and random junk, that I'd walked by many times. It was a big, weathered jet boat, with a little cabin area inside, under the piles of junk. The boat was up for auction that day. Bidding started at $5, and a homeless man, who I knew spent his days in a storage unit in that complex, and made a little money helping people move, bid $5. Someone else bid $10. $10 on a 20 foot + boat, sitting on a double axle trailer, with weather and time flattened tires. It looked to be in decent condition, in a sea worthy sense, it just needed work to clean it up and probably get it running. I couldn't fucking believe it, without thinking, I said, "C'mon people, it's a BOAT." I bid $15. The homeless guy bid $20. I bid $25. One of the guys standing there, not bidding, said, "The trailer alone is worth $1,000." Another guy jumped in, and we bid back and forth, and I wound up buying the old boat for $95.
Over the next few days, I took some photos, did some research, and tried to find someone who would buy it for $500 or $1,000, just for trailer. I learned it was a 1978, 23 foot, Sleekcraft by Nescher, made by the premiere jet boat maker in the 1970's His company was later purchased by AMF sporting goods, and 2 or 3 years after that they split again. The boat had an inboard Oldsmobile 455 engine, I didn't know if it worked. There didn't seem to be any oil leaks, it just looked weathered. My research showed that for $95, I bought a $22,000 boat and trailer that needed about $2,000 to $4,000 of work to get it back on the water, even if the engine needed to be rebuilt. It would take another $3,000 or so to completely re-cover the seats and stuff. By the time I figured that out, it was the beginning of July, 2007.
The taxi business in Orange County sucked 9 months out of the year, but the summers were decent. Working my standard 80-100 hours a week, I could make $350 to $400 a week in June and July, and maybe a bit more. I spent a lot on food, but not much else. In August, the best month, I could usually make $600 to $700 a week in my pocket. With this info in mind, I formulated my plan.
I paid $200 to rent the parking spot where the boat was parked, right outside my own storage unit. I cleaned all the junk out of the boat, mostly clothes and random junk that people who were moving from units had dumped in it. I cleaned the whole boat, and took some Armour All to the seats. I used gaffer's tape to cover the rips in the seat for the time being. It was a fucking cool boat, capable of over 60 mph, once running, and carrying 6 or 8 people. I was happy with my purchase.
I paid another $200 for the parking space in August, planning to pump of the tires, and find an friend in the desert somewhere who'd let me park it cheap, while I had a mechanic go over the engine, and a boat expert get everything else up and running, while I drove the cab all day. My plan was to get it water ready, maybe take it out once of twice, and then put it up for sale for $16,000 to $18,000, and come down to maybe $12,000 to $14,000 for a quick sale. That would be enough to get me away from taxi driving, and start doing the storage auction thing full time. I thought I was finally about to escape the miserable life that taxi driving had become. I actually liked driving a taxi, but the dispatch computers killed the industry, and worked us all into the ground, even before Uber and Lyft entered the picture.
But business didn't pick up, in fact, August 2007 kinda sucked. The only month a year I made decent money fizzled in to $300 weeks. As it turned out, the first inklings of trouble in the stock market, what would eventually become the Great Recession, hit investors in August 2007, and apparently a lot of people I drove were day traders, or took a quit hit in their investments, and partying at the local bars and clubs dropped off dramatically. So I never made enough to get the boat repaired. I didn't have the contacts to find a partner to work with, and get it done. I was working 80-100 hours a week, I didn't have time to mess with it. I had to put those hours in just to survive as a taxi driver then.
I went into the office of my storage place, I knew the lady there well, and told her the story. She now knew it was a $22,000 boat sitting out there, if fully fixed up. Rather than not pay the parking space rent for three months, she said I could sign the boat over to her, and she'd find a buyer, and get her parking space back. So I did that. The boat, MY $95 jet boat, was gone in a week. So my biggest opportunity I ever bought while buying storage unit auctions ended up costing me $495. That was the only time I ever lost money buying a storage unit at auction.
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