The Story of Bonnie and Clyde

I have told you the story of the Three Stooges, now is the time to hear about Bonnie and Clyde.   It all started with a phone call from my team at Access.  It sort of went like this.  “Hey Bob, we got the half-sister of one of our tenants wanting to rent a parking place for a tractor, for 30 days.  This tenant is also on the auction list and has been unable to locate.”   So I think out loud. “Let’s see I am going to let a three or four ton Tractor onto the property for a short term lease.  What are the chances that the locked out space will mysteriously become a cleared out space”.  My final answer is “Not just no, but hell no.”

So an hour later I get a call “We have a problem there is a tractor stuck on the property”.  Now I truly thought we had already dealt with tractors today So I ask is this the same tractor or a new on?”  Unfortunately it is the same one.

This is what I see when I got to the office at Access.

The story of what happened goes like this.  Bonnie and Clyde are driving down Cemetery Rd illegally towing a tractor with this wonderfully purple van, when they spot a cop.  So they duck into the car wash. They find out once they get to the back that they are too tall to fit. When they try to back up they get the tractor messed up on the trailer and they are stuck.  So while I am laughing at this sight I notice they are using a Budget car-carrier.  Now I know a little about rental equipment and as I am catching my breath I explain to my team that Budget does not rent their dollies to anyone except with a truck rental.  U-Haul is the only company the rents trailers by themselves.  So we call the nearest Budget dealer  and ask if they would like to come and check this out.  15 to 20 minutes later when area manager for Budget is in our office.  As far as he can tell this trailer is supposed to be in New Mexico sitting on a lot.

He goes out and talks to Bonnie and she tells him that this trailer belongs to her and he needs to leave them alone they are already in “civil litigation” with Budget and he does not want to get messed up with that. He simply says that he will have a tow truck here to retrieve the dolly and he will call the police to witness the collection. With this news Clyde goes into overdrive to get this tractor out of there, he starts pushing the limits of this incredibly white trash van. By the time he is done the drive tire is shredded, the tractor has fallen off the trailer smashing the crap out of it, and basically turning a bad situation worse.  

So what does a good and trustworthy Clyde do when the chips are down and the police are on the way?

You drop the trailer and run …. And leave Bonnie sitting in the dust.  That’s right he leaves his girlfriend and takes off.  She sticks her head in the office to tell us that they are going to get the paperwork for the car carrier and when she turns around he is gone. If these two idiots had not just made a wreak of four other peoples day, not counting the family, friends and coworkers that were affected buy our tardiness on the day, I might have had some sympathy.  No I just took more pictures.

The police did show up but found that the tractor was actually not stolen….crap….  I really thought it was going to be stolen, but Bonnie did not have any outstanding warrants out on her….crap… I really thought she was going to have outstanding warrants on her.   I still believe with the quick departure of Clyde that he does have a warrant or to on him.

Well the end of the story is this: Budget got back a trailer that was rightfully theirs, Bonnie and Clyde lived to fight another day, I got a bunch of photos to make a blog post with, John and Michel got first hand proof that my stories about storage are not made up and take no embellishing and sometime later the next day, Clyde came back and with a chain pulled the tractor off our property.

The morel of this story is this; when towing a tractor twice the size of your white trash van, make sure to pack a parachute.  You never know when you’re going to need to bail. The real Bonnie and Clyde were real scary and dangerous criminals, these two were just scary and sad. 

P.S.  The last I saw of Bonnie she was walking down the street.  I was over 100 degrees and her man had thrown her under the bus. My harden heart did feel some sadness and pitty.  I hope she finds some truth in this situation and start making better choices.

A Scam Called a Moving Company

I haven’t seen this maneuver in a couple years but it still smells just as bad.  Over at the new store we had a very nice lady reserve a space.  Her story was that she was moving from somewhere in New Mexico to Yukon Oklahoma and our facility was in the best location for her needs.  She showed up around 10 am rented one of our biggest units and sat back to wait on the moving company.   3 hours later she was still waiting.  I then came to find out that the moving company was stopped on the side of the highway outside of town.  The home office of the moving company had decided to re-evaluate the price of the move, but they had not told their customer yet she just thought they were running late.  This is when I realized that she was doing business with the wrong moving company.   The truck did show up, and parked itself right in front of our gate.   The driver then lets the nice lady know that the main company has re-evaluated the load and the charge for the move has now gone from a staggering $3,000 to an unbelievable $10,000.  That’s right kids they wanted her to pay $7,000 more or he would not be allowed to unload the truck.  Now I did feel like ripping this driver a new orifice, but in reality he was not calling the shots here.  Luckily we soon found out who was. This sweet mild grand ma who had moved to Yukon to live at a retirement home close to her sons turned on the old George Patton.  She had a nice conversation with the moving company management.  She was nice and sweet and got all kinds of information.  Then while the company talked to the driver she called one son, a nice contractor here in the state to come by and help.  He showed up to block the truck in so it could not leave.  Then she called her other son a corporate contract lawyer and turned him loose on the moving company’s corporate leaders.  She ended her battle strategy by calling the Oklahoma City Sheriff’s department.

As soon as the lawyer got involved the driver got a call to leave our facility and to take his load to the company warehouse.  He had to tell them he could not because he was blocked in.  Then the sheriff showed up to take a report on the incident that was happening.  Then the Lawyer / son called to tell mom to only pay the $3,000 dollars after they unload and that his office would be dealing with the claim for the $7,000 extra.  At this point the driver received a call and then unloaded the truck.  These guys screwed with the wrong lady, but they would not be doing this if they did not get away with it most of the time. 

The bad news to all of this was someone had to stay and mind the store and the gates till all this was done.  Sometime after 10 pm.

The lesson:  National moving companies are not your friends.  Even if they have all American names , and large moving Vans, and can move you stuff in a straight Line.  Do not let anyone load your stuff without a written contract that states the final price.  Best policy is to rent your own truck and higher movers on both ends, one to load and another to unload.  I just do not trust the big name trucking companies.   

A new place to work and another auction!

I am still 4 weeks outside of my auction and lo and behold the owner of my storage has closed on another facility. Access Storage is now under the Avandale umbrella. This is an excellent opportunity and creates some new challenges. Access has a Car Wash included with the property and 4 acres of undeveloped land. Look for a lot to happen here. Oh yeah, did I mention it is one mile from Guardian. This may constitute some running between facilities for me, but that is just good business.

Now for the challenges! The office came complete with contracts, cameras, a comfy couch for the customers and no employees. Usually when a company is taken over or bought out the customers and their pay comes as part of the deal. We are not sure when but there are no employees so day one we start behind the eight ball. Also on day one we find out that Access Storage is in the final days of an auction of it’s own. I don’t understand this auction first of all there is no paper trail that is easy to follow, and there is only one space going up for auction. The facility is only 55 to 60 % occupied so why push only one unit why not wait for more units to accumulate. To top this problem the customer has notified that he has retained a lawyer to declare bankruptcy. What a pain in the ass this is. Now that we are trying to put together an office on the fly, we are now in a horse race. The race is this, when the lawyer gets the paperwork into the court house we will be notified and have to kill the auction on this space. So who is faster the lawyer and his paperwork or Access and the calendar. If Auction date gets here without our notification of the bankruptcy then the sale goes on.

The best thing about the new facility and it’s location so close to us, is that we can run the two stores in tandem. And I get free car washes !!! Yeah!!