Strangest Findings in Self-Storage

While most people turn to Spaces and Places to store sporting equipment, clutter, furniture or business use, owners of self-storage facilities have found themselves coming across a whole host of unusual items. From the weird to the wonderful, we take you through the 10 most unusual findings ever to come out of self-storage.

1- Knight Rider

While many people come to us looking to store classic and vintage cars, UK Storage Company were surprised to spot a replica of Michael Knights famous K.I.T.T vehicle from Knight Rider going into one of their units.

2- A $1m comic book

Nicolas Cage filed a police report back in 2000 after he realised that a rare 1938 edition comic book, had been stolen from his home. More than 10 years later, the book turned

up in an abandoned storage unit. The man who had bought the contents at auction contacted a comic book expert who happened to have sold the book to Cage back in 1997 and immediately recognised it. The actor was soon reunited with his $1m book.

3- Pirate Treasure

Back in 2011, a man from San José struck gold after he bought a storage unit in a blind auction. It was reported that the lucky anonymous buyer bought the unit for $1,100 and discovered approximately $500,000 worth of pirate treasure containing rare gold doubloons, silver Spanish dollars and gold and silver bars.

4- Unreleased Michael Jackson recordings

A US storage facility reclaimed a unit due to a number of unpaid bills, only to discover that the unit belonged to Joe Jackson and contained 270 unreleased tracks recorded by his son Michael. Because the king of pop was in between record deals, no one had a legal claim to the records and the owner agreed to work exclusively with Katherine Jackson over the contents.

5- Live hand grenade

A man got more than he bargained for after finding a live hand grenade in a storage unit in Michigan. Thankfully no one got hurt and the bomb squad arrived immediately to detonate the grenade.

6- Coffin

A storage company in Florida contacted a family to inform them that the unit was going to be auctioned off due to unpaid rent. The family responded saying they couldn’t possibly auction the contents as the unit contained the body of the family’s grandmother who had passed away 17 years previously.

7- Dinosaur bones

Back in 2011, a rare jawbone of an ancient flying reptile known as a Pterosaur turned up in a storage unit at the University of Alberta.

8- Aretha Franklins wardrobe

Aretha turned to self-storage to keep her clothes safe after her home caught fire. After failing to pay her bills, the R&B divas iconic wardrobe was auctioned off to the highest bidder.

9- A Dalek

A North West man used his self-storage unit to store a former Dr Who Dalek, surprising other owners by racing the machine up and down corridors.

10- NASA rocket

An auction winner on American TV show Auction Hunters uncovered a NASA rocket and countdown clock in the winning unit.