Storage Company goes bust!
And keeps all my old Star Wars toys.

My mum died in 2000, I was living in a small flat in Newcastle and had to empty the family home in a short period of time. So, I picked a local storage company and put everything I couldn't fit into my flat into a 8'x 8' crate. There was everything a family of 4 had accumulated over the years but mainly toys - my Action Man collection, Hot Wheels Garages, Matchbox car collection, my mums' 60's record collection, my boxed Star Wars collection, 6 Million Dollar man rocket and loads more.

Fast Forward 5 years, I'm in a position now to sort it and shift into my own loft to hoard for more years.

Their phone number doesn't work. Weird. Their website has closed. Odd. I'll drive up there. Oh, the old factory they were using to store everyone's crates is abandoned. Next door is a small cash and carry so I ask the owner whats going on. "I've had people coming in here for weeks mate" he says. "They packed up and left 2 months ago taking loads of crates with them. I have keys, you want to see inside? There's loads of open crates strewn all over". My heart sinks.

Inside the old factory it was heart breaking, about 20 or so 8' x 8' crates ripped open the contents scattered around the place, ransacked for anything of value. Peoples stuff they'd trusted to a company thrown around and in heaps.

I went to Trading Standards "Oh yes, we know all about him. He's done it before. Starts a storage company, it goes bust, peoples stuff disappears. There's nothing we can do, it's with the liquidators". So I contact the liquidators, there's no record of me or my crate (even though I have documents) so they can't help me. Back to Trading Standards who suggests getting together with other people and take him to the Small Claims courts. So, I go to the Police "well, it's not theft as you gave them to him to look after, have you tried Trading Standards or a solicitor?". Fucking great.

What for? So we'd win, he'd have to pay us back a quid a week or something. Whats the point. It's not the value of the items (maybe £2000), it's the items themselves. Items my Mum and Dad bought like the talking Action Man I got for my 7th Birthday or the Ewok Village me and my bro played with for ages one Christmas Day. My parents are both no longer with me (hence the emptying of the family home) and my brother is now in long-term care due to mental illness so it was always reassuring knowing I had those 'things', a link to my past when I was innocent and happy.

If only I'd gone a few months earlier.... Still makes my stomach hurt now that I was such a fool.

I hope he enjoyed the few quid he made at a carboot sale selling my family items. Cunt.
(TheManofScience, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 10:41, 40 replies)

lol

(comedy bully grrrr, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 11:03, closed)

Lucky it was only a load of old toys you lost, eh.

( tangledupinblue hairy badge with moving eyes, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 11:09, closed)

What a bastard.

( Pig Bodine., Mon 11 Nov 2013, 11:09, closed)

Yeah, but...
... at risk of sounding like an utter arsehole, the link can't have been all that strong, if it was there at all. After all, this is stuff that had been in a loft and then in storage since you were 7 - a period that I'm going to guess is measurable in decades. I'm guessing that in times of hardship, it wasn't the knowledge that there was some mass-produced plastic tat in a box somewhere that got you through. And you've still got the link to your past, on the grounds that you're still the same person.

Is it really the items that matter, or could it be (a) a set of memories and attachments (which have not been lost; that Christmas has gone forever, but for reasons quite aside from the loss of the Ewok village), and/ or (b) the breach of trust (which is not repairable, but which is the sort of thing for which you can get redress via the courts)?

None of this makes the swindler any less of an arsehole, of course.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 11:23, closed)

The Shame
That's what hurts the most. That I wasn't able to look after the 'things' as well my parents did in the short time I was trusted. My own fault.

Yes they are replaceable, not worth a great deal, only moulded plastic (except where I'd glued my talking Action Man's head back on) but she'd treasured them and looked after them, stored them for years in the hope they'd be worth something to me or my bro in later years - and I was careless not looking after them in the same way.
(TheManofScience, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:00, closed)

You mean she never bothered throwing them out because she was a lazy slattern.

(comedy bully grrrr, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:35, closed)

Trusted on whose behalf?
It's not like you have any obligations to anyone else that you've failed to meet - that'd stand even if the expectation of future value was well-founded, which it ain't.

There was stuff in a loft. Then it was in storage. Then you were preparing to put it into another loft. It doesn't sound like you had all that much of an investment in it anyway. To all intents and purposes, having something doing nothing in a loft is indistiguishable from not having it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:42, closed)

it's the reassurance of knowing it was there, carrying on the memories, doing thing people have done in the past they thought important

Are there other ways? Of course.

Am i still living? to some degree. So the world keeps turning!
(TheManofScience, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:08, closed)

What Dr. Dr . said below.
Btw, ignore rory and shambo.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 14:47, closed)

haha gutted

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 11:44, closed)

I'm proper enjoying people's misery this week.
More of this sort of thing.
(comedy bully grrrr, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:36, closed)

Fuck those trolls above^
It's a shitty thing to happen. I hope he bumps into one of the people he's ripped off in a dark alley one night. Can you name and shame? The qotw says 'grass somebody up' after all.

Have a sympathy click.
(Dr Doctor Can't you see I'm burning burning?, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:42, closed)

I hope someone takes a contract out on him, given that usual methods of legal recourse dont seem to work
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 12:51, closed)

I'll do him in for a tenner and a bag of chips

( Major Turd for tonight only, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 13:37, closed)

you slag
you could at least hold out for a drink or two first. Maybe a nice dinner.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 14:23, closed)

steady on there, esther rantzen

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 13:40, closed)

Steady on there yourself, bandwagon jumper.
Your joining in is totes original and well lol
(Dr Doctor Can't you see I'm burning burning?, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 13:43, closed)

wut?

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 17:10, closed)

thought this was supposed to be a humorous and/or comedy website?

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 13:51, closed)

i think those days went a while ago...
(TheManofScience, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:09, closed)

i know, right

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:28, closed)

^^Hmmm^^
But when there's cuntishness for cuntishness's sake, it's not really comedy or humourous. It's just cuntish.
(The Magic Number is neither magic nor a number, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:17, closed)

made me laugh

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:28, closed)

Can't have been that important if you left them for 5 years
and from your last sentence all you seem to be bothered about is money. Cunt.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 15:25, closed)

Not sure which last sentence u mean, I could have taken them to court but clearly said it would make no difference as it's not the money.

As for the 5 years bit, Living in a small flat, getting married and having 1st child in the same small flat didn't leave much room for me having my 1970's Action Man on display.
(TheManofScience, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 16:17, closed)

I see the usual clique are out trolling again
Twats, absolute twats
(boarders You won't catch me with my trousers, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 20:14, closed)

PROTIP: "trolling" doesn't mean what the Sun and the Mail tell you it means.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 22:51, closed)

Yawn

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 10:01, closed)

you lost my sympathy at 'star wars'

( rofl harris, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 17:10, closed)

Rotten fucking luck
but karma will bite him in the arse one day.

Have a click.
(wolfpussy will nibble your fingers on, Mon 11 Nov 2013, 20:16, closed)

I love how the police ignore crimes.
Like you I hope he gets his comeuppance in a dark alley some time but I fear whoever did it would end up in prison.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 7:50, closed)

This was one of those I didn't like clicking.
As a fellow "late in life orphan" I can relate to some of your guilt issues.
Hey, don't twist yourself up with guilt about what you did or didn't do. They're dead now and if they gave a shit it probably wasn't about what you're stressing about.

The guy who bilked you - whether he get his or not, unless you really want to be the Harbinger of Doom for him -
he'll probably die cold and lonely and no one will give half as much of a shit about him as you have about your mum and her death.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 8:28, closed)

"Late in life orphan"?
Your suffering is truly unique.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 9:41, closed)

Don't be so harsh.
It's much more tragic when an adult loses his parents. Children who lose their parents didn't really have long to grow attached to them anyway!
( Muns, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 15:23, closed)

Good point, well made.

( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 16:33, closed)

An eye for an eye, I think.

(SpangoTheWonderBadger is brewing beer, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 10:00, closed)

If you weren't too tight to pay for Big Yellow Storage or Pickfords, eh?
If only you'd paid a quid a week more rather than spend that quid on chips to stuff into your stupid fat Northern face, eh?

You'd still have all your lovely things. Wouldn't you?

For the sake of a quid and cutting down on a few chips a week.
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 13:18, closed)

I wish you couldn't given me this life advice years ago, I wouldn't have been here to read it.

oh, that's like a paradox!
(TheManofScience, Tue 12 Nov 2013, 14:25, closed)