I love Storage Wars.* And I love the episode of This American Life that introduced me to the fact that the contents of storage lockers whose owners have failed to keep up with their payments get auctioned off. Most importantly, they get auctioned off to people who are not allowed to go through the locker to see what’s in them; they just get to stand in the doorway for a few minutes and look. So trying to figure out what is actually in a storage locker is an important part of determining what it’s worth. Sometimes (Storage Wars is edited to make it seem like it’s more often than not) an auction won for a few hundred dollars yields thousands of dollars of hidden treasure.

And that’s all very cool. In this way, Storage Wars is of a kind with the other auction and pawn shop reality shows that are cropping up. Clearly network executives have struck a recession-era nerve and the audience’s collective longing for financial salvation that relies more on serendipity than hard work and thrift. In shows like Secret Millionaire or Undercover Boss, it’s a hidden benefactor that walks among us. In Storage Wars and the like it’s that a fortune has been under our noses this entire time.

But here’s the thing that’s never mentioned on Storage Wars: by law, at least in New York, the money from the auction is used to clear up the outstanding debt to the storage facility, but for a winning bid in excess of that debt, the additional money must be given to the former renter.

Which means you could rent a storage locker, fill it with very attractive-looking but ultimately worthless items — empty boxes marked “Honus Wagner baseball cards” and “Inverted Jenny Stamps” — then immediately fall into arrears with the storage facility. After a few months, they auction off your stuff to pay your debt, which will probably be in the low three figures, and return the excess millions paid by the winning bidder, who was no doubt blinded by the prospect of striking gold. The cost to you: your deposit at the storage facility, a few boxes and a sharpie.

As always, I encourage you to cut me in on your windfall.

[* Or I did before I cancelled my cable and joined the ranks of the antenna-wielding OTA (Over The Air) TV army, which is akin to trading the comfort of an automobile for the absurdity, inconvenience, and righteous sense of superiority provided by a recumbent bike.]

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