A certain storage unit discovery that wasn’t aired on TV included a bundle of cash that totaled to well… just a whopping $7.5 million! Auctioneer couples Dan and Laura Dotson unsuspectingly unloaded the most valuable locker they have ever sold in their entire lives in Indio, California for a mere $500. The man who purchased the unit discovered a safe inside the locker that stored over $7 million in cold, hard cash!
Apparently, things didn’t go as smoothly as the guy who bought the safe would have thought of though. Shortly after his unbelievable find, he claimed that a lawyer contacted him, declaring to represent the individuals who were the original owners of the storage unit and the $7.5 million bundle of cash inside. The attorney offered a $600,000 reward if he gave back the money. The guy rejected it at first but then took a second offer to retain $1.2 million and return the $6.3 million that’s left.
Thanks To His Aunt, Jarrod's In The Business
People help people to succeed. Indeed, it’s difficult to pursue all your dreams in life if there is no one who you can rely on for support during the ebb and flow of the process. Bill Clinton notably aided his friend Barack Obama in winning his presidential electoral campaign and eventually in navigating the political scenery that followed. American rap and hip-hop legends Dr. Dre and Eminem were instrumental in launching the music career of their friend 50 Cent.
For Jarrod, he had his aunt and partner Brandi to thank for in transforming his troubled past into a promising future. His aunt was, in fact, an owner of a public storage facility where Jarrod would spend some time with and ultimately led him to enter into the storage hunting business. Jarrod’s partner, on the other hand, provided him the necessary mental and emotional support to accomplish his dreams.
Non-Cast Members Can Sometimes Make Off With The Best Stuff
The appeal of many shows is mostly dictated by its stars. The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show wouldn’t have been long-running, hit talk shows without, well, Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres themselves. The same can be said with every TV show or series regardless of the genre. Often, viewers fall in love with one of the show’s stars and this becomes a big part of its success both in the short-run and long-run.
On Storage Wars, you might have observed that the regular cast members will almost always snatch the unit regardless if there are other non-cast members bidding on it at the same time. Understandably so, the show intends to put the spotlight on their stars, although that meant losing out on quality TV. As it appears, amateur storage hunters can also bring home the bacon. The following amateur storage hunter ended up with the best find in the entire history of the show, putting the rest of all the cast members into shame.
A Sad Loss
Amidst all the success and popularity of Storage Wars, the show also had its own fair share of tragedies. Everyone in the cast and crew and countless others who watched the show was deeply saddened when one of its co-stars, Mark Balelo, passed away from an apparent suicide. The police discovered Balelo lifeless due to carbon monoxide poisoning just days following his apprehension for possession of the illegal substance. Unfortunately, it appeared that the Storage Wars star endured a problematic life and had been apprehended by law enforcement officers for the same violation back in 2007.
Mark Balelo was the owner of Balelo Inc., a liquidation merchandise business, and became popular in the show for being among the “big buyers” who were adept at bargaining and spotting treasure beneath all the trash. Nicknamed "Rico Suave," Balelo made front page news in 2011 after helping famed actor Nicolas Cage regain a mint-condition copy of a 1938 Action Comics book that got stolen from his storage locker.
The Hand Shrine
Bidders on the show don’t have a clue what they’re going to get after they swap their hard earned money for a storage locker. The network, after all, describes Storage Wars as “modern-day pirates blindly bid on abandoned storage units that may contain junk or treasure”. Indeed, there are units that hold untold riches but there are also other Storage Wars lockers that have housed the strange and truly bizarre.
Of course, cast members of the reality TV series are doing their best to generate the highest ROI (Return on Investment) but along the way, they can also unearth something that is a bit too weird to fathom. One cast member became the next curator of a “hand collection” that included hand sculptures, hand posters, and other items that we probably shouldn’t continue mentioning at this point.