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Best way to put Public Storage on blast?


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My story. Posted on their google site, Yelp and Facebook so far.

———

We moved to Singapore 4 years ago and chose Public Storage on West 5th I’m Austin, Texas to store our family possessions that we couldn't take with us. Among these things were pictures, writings and poems, the ashes of our pets, sports memorabilia and our wedding album - items that are non-replaceable. 

This week my wife returned to Texas and went to our storage to remove a few things. She found a new lock on the unit. She had the lock removed to find that our storage unit had been burglarized. Almost everything had been removed - including the non-replaceables.

We have paid $250 a month for 4 years to have our lives wrecked and our possessions end up in pawn shops and trash cans. 

The insurance company denied any claim (maximum value is $3000 in case you are interested) because this was not considered "forced entry."

Cutting off our lock, stealing our stuff and then replacing our lock doesn't qualify as "forced." Destroying the memories of our lives is no big deal...

Security is pretty much non-existent - there is no video inside the building. There are no patrols or checks. The police say this is a common tactic for employees to steal from the customers. 

This company doesn't care about its customers, their possessions or their lives. I would avoid any dealings with them. If you need to store your things look elsewhere, somewhere that takes security and their customers seriously.

Edited by Fastbreak
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Texas stuff stolen. All 2005 championship stuff, crystal football, signed ball from Vince, game programs, Colt signed framed picture, BMW squad signed poster, plus lots others. 

Almost full set of 1959 Topps baseball cards, 1000s of other cards. Signed balls from bob feller, Steve Carlton, Earl Weaver. 

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Sucks that your stuff was stolen.

 

For $ 4,000.00, you could have made friends with a someone that has acreage & had a nice, large storage building installed (on slab, add $ 1,000 or so) & had A/C wired up.  @ The end of your term, they would keep your building & you spent a lot less $$ on the storage.

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That sucks. Bet your wife (and then you) were very upset.

Employees can be good about discovering people that are gone for long periods of time. Don’t have a storage room but When Uber to the airport, I tell the driver that I was staying with friends and headed home to wherever. None of his business that my house is empty.

any legal recourse against the storage company to get some of your rent back? If you’re willing to go on tv, I bet one the local consumer reporters would love this story. That might force public storage to reimburse you as they don’t want to publicize their employees or other customers are thieves.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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It really won't be that hard to get the employees to tell you whom they think did it.  After that, for $5k---the due diligence firm we use can locate those people and for another $5k will tell you with 98% accuracy which one of them stole from you.  

I don't know much about storage insurance.  But doesn't sound like the items you mentioned are easily fenced.  So good news and bad news---the items are probably still in that person's possession still.  Or they have been disposed of in a way that you won't ever recover them in this lifetime.  What we do know is that these items are within 90% certainty not in the possession of some random person who took delivery of them for a few hundreds bucks whom you'll never be able to track down.  They are either gone forever, or sitting in this dipshit's garage as some sort of twisted trophy collection. 

Corporate Public Storage won't pay this any attention.  The franchise owner on West 5th needs to have it made clear to them that their employees are looting their property and they can either turn over the records of who has been suspected of this before or you will be paying homeless people $50/day plus beer to stand outside their 5th Street facility with signs saying, "Staff Steals Your Storage."  

There's a good chance you can find out a short list of people.  There's an even better chance with that list, the person can be tracked down.  And once you have that information, 50% chance they still have the items.  

And of course, if they don't turn them back over to you even after you've offered them a written guarantee of not to notify the storage property owner or the police, and even offered them a few hundred bucks for their trouble---our due diligence firm will also make sure that person never gets to open so much as a bank account for the next decade.  No loans, no credit cards, no adoptions, their credit report will be reduced to below 500, and any future employer background checks will raise more red flags than a Mandarin Army.  Their life will be digitally destroyed over some photo albums and poems.  Nevermind you'll be pressing full criminal charges.  They probably won't stick but the arrest record will be awfully sticky.  And this firm (we'll call them "Lucinda") doesn't leave any traces of their work.  And I mean zero trace.  

You deserve these things back in your life, I'm sure your family is sick about it all.  Gonna cost you a few bucks.  But wrecking this person's life will be very satisfying, almost as satisfying as getting these items back.  

Edited by Lobo
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Sucks that your stuff was stolen.
 
For $ 4,000.00, you could have made friends with a someone that has acreage & had a nice, large storage building installed (on slab, add $ 1,000 or so) & had A/C wired up.  @ The end of your term, they would keep your building & you spent a lot less $$ on the storage.


That’s very helpful.
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It really won't be that hard to get the employees to tell you whom they think did it.  After that, for $5k---the due diligence firm we use can locate those people and for another $5k will tell you with 98% accuracy which one of them stole from you.  
I don't know much about storage insurance.  But doesn't sound like the items you mentioned are easily fenced.  So good news and bad news---the items are probably still in that person's possession still.  Or they have been disposed of in a way that you won't ever recover them in this lifetime.  What we do know is that these items are within 90% certainty not in the possession of some random person who took delivery of them for a few hundreds bucks whom you'll never be able to track down.  They are either gone forever, or sitting in this dipshit's garage as some sort of twisted trophy collection. 
Corporate Public Storage won't pay this any attention.  The franchise owner on West 5th needs to have it made clear to them that their employees are looting their property and they can either turn over the records of who has been suspected of this before or you will be paying homeless people $50/day plus beer to stand outside their 5th Street facility with signs saying, "Staff Steals Your Storage."  
There's a good chance you can find out a short list of people.  There's an even better chance with that list, the person can be tracked down.  And once you have that information, 50% chance they still have the items.  
And of course, if they don't turn them back over to you even after you've offered them a written guarantee of not to notify the storage property owner or the police, and even offered them a few hundred bucks for their trouble---our due diligence firm will also make sure that person never gets to open so much as a bank account for the next decade.  No loans, no credit cards, no adoptions, their credit report will be reduced to below 500, and any future employer background checks will raise more red flags than a Mandarin Army.  Their life will be digitally destroyed over some photo albums and poems.  Nevermind you'll be pressing full criminal charges.  They probably won't stick but the arrest record will be awfully sticky.  And this firm (we'll call them "Lucinda") doesn't leave any traces of their work.  And I mean zero trace.  
You deserve these things back in your life, I'm sure your family is sick about it all.  Gonna cost you a few bucks.  But wrecking this person's life will be very satisfying, almost as satisfying as getting these items back.  

This sounds like the pitch from the guy selling precious metals a few years ago. But a little scarier.


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Storage companies are, in my experience, all shady as shit. I knew a guy in Ft. Worth who worked for one of these places and the break ins by the employees was just a part of the racket. They'd identify a locker that hadn't been opened in a long time and cut the lock. If there were things of value then they'd steal them and call it a burglary, if not then they'd tell the renter that they'd run off a burglar and put a new lock on the unit. Maybe charge 'em a few bucks for doing them a solid. Scum bags.

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Serious question---how do they know which locker hasn't been opened up in a long time?  I know in some of them, you "sign in" when you're there for your own peace of mind.  But most, you just come and go as you please.  Now, these are not exactly the Mensa proving ground working there.  But I would think some of them would eventually recognize a unit that is visited more often than others.  "Hey that guy in the Jeep with the beard comes in here like once a week."  But how do they track the tacitly omitted renters?  In a place with 500 units...I get that they know the 50 that come in all the time.  But how do they say, "hey nobody has visited units 105, 106, 109, 114, 115, 118, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 137, and 145 in a long time.?  

How could they know that.  Unless they are using surveillance video to blow through months of video in minutes, seeing which units have had no activity at all.  In which case, their search activity has left a fingerprint.  But honest question, my vengeance aside---I see how they can track who is there a lot and bringing in good looking shit.  But how do they decide which units are orphaned and maybe a target?  If they are using video, my Mr. Wolf suggestion is far easier than I thought.  

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29 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Serious question---how do they know which locker hasn't been opened up in a long time?  I know in some of them, you "sign in" when you're there for your own peace of mind.  But most, you just come and go as you please.  Now, these are not exactly the Mensa proving ground working there.  But I would think some of them would eventually recognize a unit that is visited more often than others.  "Hey that guy in the Jeep with the beard comes in here like once a week."  But how do they track the tacitly omitted renters?  In a place with 500 units...I get that they know the 50 that come in all the time.  But how do they say, "hey nobody has visited units 105, 106, 109, 114, 115, 118, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 137, and 145 in a long time.?  

How could they know that.  Unless they are using surveillance video to blow through months of video in minutes, seeing which units have had no activity at all.  In which case, their search activity has left a fingerprint.  But honest question, my vengeance aside---I see how they can track who is there a lot and bringing in good looking shit.  But how do they decide which units are orphaned and maybe a target?  If they are using video, my Mr. Wolf suggestion is far easier than I thought.  

Every one  that I've used, you had to enter a gate code upon arrival. 

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How many digits?  Is it one general one like an apartment complex?  Or is some 5-digit unique one just for you so that they can cover thousands of units with obvious redundant codes? 

And if it's all digitalized then it should be hard to figure out who keeps pulling the report of what codes were typed in ten times that month nd which ones haven't been typed in at all for 6 months.  I'm guessing the manager/owner pulls it every now and again.  But you can see the timestamp of what lower level employees have been pulling it or at least scrolling through it on which shift.  I.e., Every other Thursday at 5am, somebody from our staff searches through all the monthly log-ins to see who has come and gone.  Well, start with the folks pulling rolls when they really shouldn't be.  It's not some massive tech company, if somebody is looking at entry logs at a certain time of time...odds are there is just one or two people working there at that time.  Unless they have remote access, which is even more suspect IMO.  But still traceable.  

So now Public Storage has a new issue.  We all know theft of units is rampant and just assumed this whole time it was bad actors who've found ways to get inside the gates/doors after hours and pillage.  Well, it's actually much more plain sight than that.  Employees have figured out how to pull the log-in records and see who hasn't come in for a long while, if ever.  And many of them roam from property to property under the guise of, "I always liked working for this company, we just moved cities for a change of scenery."  

Shit, this will cost the OP half of what I thought it would to get the handful of names.  Now to be fair, you don't want to wreck the life of somebody that just sorta went along with this shit because some other employee pressured them.  I don't really understand the access system.  But I do understand that somebody like this is even easier to track down.  You can put them into a spot where they'll hand over everything to you and everything else they've ever taken from anybody else, ever.  You'll be half a hero.  Downside though is they'll grow to resent you in a few months and they obviously have personal information on you now that could prove worrisome.  But there are ways to take care of those kinds of problems.  

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How many digits?  Is it one general one like an apartment complex?  Or is some 5-digit unique one just for you so that they can cover thousands of units with obvious redundant codes? 
And if it's all digitalized then it should be hard to figure out who keeps pulling the report of what codes were typed in ten times that month nd which ones haven't been typed in at all for 6 months.  I'm guessing the manager/owner pulls it every now and again.  But you can see the timestamp of what lower level employees have been pulling it or at least scrolling through it on which shift.  I.e., Every other Thursday at 5am, somebody from our staff searches through all the monthly log-ins to see who has come and gone.  Well, start with the folks pulling rolls when they really shouldn't be.  It's not some massive tech company, if somebody is looking at entry logs at a certain time of time...odds are there is just one or two people working there at that time.  Unless they have remote access, which is even more suspect IMO.  But still traceable.  
So now Public Storage has a new issue.  We all know theft of units is rampant and just assumed this whole time it was bad actors who've found ways to get inside the gates/doors after hours and pillage.  Well, it's actually much more plain sight than that.  Employees have figured out how to pull the log-in records and see who hasn't come in for a long while, if ever.  And many of them roam from property to property under the guise of, "I always liked working for this company, we just moved cities for a change of scenery."  
Shit, this will cost the OP half of what I thought it would to get the handful of names.  Now to be fair, you don't want to wreck the life of somebody that just sorta went along with this shit because some other employee pressured them.  I don't really understand the access system.  But I do understand that somebody like this is even easier to track down.  You can put them into a spot where they'll hand over everything to you and everything else they've ever taken from anybody else, ever.  You'll be half a hero.  Downside though is they'll grow to resent you in a few months and they obviously have personal information on you now that could prove worrisome.  But there are ways to take care of those kinds of problems.  


Are you ROFLBOX‘s long lost cousin?
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5 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

Holy shit, @Lobo I need to pay attention to more of your posts. You really think things through.

Meh, I'm forgettable.  I'm just the "Yeah, but..." guy at work.  The portfolio companies and operating groups we work with...invariably due the value nature of what we deal with...somebody in leadership gets cute and starts trying to siphon off what they can before they are inevitably shitcanned.  And these people always do the same type of shit over and over again.  They think they are the smartest person in the world and they try and either double-down on their current position, or they see the writing on the wall and try to leave with some parting gifts as Pat Sajak used to say.  And they get an extra level of comfort, like these Public Storage folks, by not being approached by law enforcement and dumping everything before the shit hits the fan.  So we take a different approach.  You get a chance to make things right, no police or anything like that.  If you don't replace what you took (personal effects in this OP case, usually money or brazen expense abuses in our case)...then I have to drop the hammer on you.  Our system has brought down small-cap publicly traded CEO's, I think we can help get Public Storage to cooperate.  The old adage of people with nothing to lose are the hardest to deal with used to be true.  But in this day and age, your shit follows you forever in the digital world so even felons with zero fucks given realize the system will single them out.  

A lot of people, sadly, get off on violence or intimidation.  Not me.  But it's that look on someone's face when they know they're boxed in.  That they fucked up.  And that for whatever little they shuttled out of the company or the storage unit...that they screwed themselves over for decades.  that's what I enjoy.  When they look back and see the folly of their ways and wished they had to do it all over again but they can't because I'm there in the room with them.  And they won't be able to get a decent job or see their kids on the weekends because they stole from the wrong person.  No hands will ever be laid upon them, but they'd gladly trade a beating for what's in store for them.  It's the not knowing that really eats at them.  That you can bring a person from this perch of invincibility down to pleading to do anything for you...that's what makes this fun.  I feel bad for the kids sometimes though...but they should have thought of that first.  

Edited by Lobo
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On 4/1/2019 at 12:55 PM, ROFL BOX said:

For $ 4,000.00, you could have made friends with a someone that has acreage & had a nice, large storage building installed (on slab, add $ 1,000 or so) & had A/C wired up.  @ The end of your term, they would keep your building & you spent a lot less $$ on the storage.

Can you go into this in a new thread? This is actually relevant to my interests, I have the land and also have a ton of shit in storage. I thought building my own would be considerably more than the 5k you mention (on slab). This math works for me even at 10k.

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1 minute ago, Sam Lin said:

Can you go into this in a new thread? This is actually relevant to my interests, I have the land and also have a ton of shit in storage. I thought building my own would be considerably more than the 5k you mention (on slab). This math works for me even at 10k.

Where do you live?

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You'll need to find yourself some carpenters, a crew that can pour you the size (dimensions + thickness) slab you want & maybe an electrician.

Tell them the size(s) you want (slab, storage bldg) & move ahead from there.

You can also get a contractor to do all this for you if you don't mind the premium.

We are in Central Texas, so...

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Each customer has a unique code. The Public Storage on West 6th is a single building with one point of entry. It is a climate controlled multi-level structure. That is another reason that this appears to be an inside job. The lock they replaced mine with was also was a new "public storage" lock.

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8 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

So, you would expect burglars to leave the unit unlocked after the burglary?

Prob. better to avoid suspicion & put some kind of lock on there... but to use a PS lock (the one they use, not available retail) is an obvious sign.

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Meh, I'm forgettable.  I'm just the "Yeah, but..." guy at work.  The portfolio companies and operating groups we work with...invariably due the value nature of what we deal with...somebody in leadership gets cute and starts trying to siphon off what they can before they are inevitably shitcanned.  And these people always do the same type of shit over and over again.  They think they are the smartest person in the world and they try and either double-down on their current position, or they see the writing on the wall and try to leave with some parting gifts as Pat Sajak used to say.  And they get an extra level of comfort, like these Public Storage folks, by not being approached by law enforcement and dumping everything before the shit hits the fan.  So we take a different approach.  You get a chance to make things right, no police or anything like that.  If you don't replace what you took (personal effects in this OP case, usually money or brazen expense abuses in our case)...then I have to drop the hammer on you.  Our system has brought down small-cap publicly traded CEO's, I think we can help get Public Storage to cooperate.  The old adage of people with nothing to lose are the hardest to deal with used to be true.  But in this day and age, your shit follows you forever in the digital world so even felons with zero fucks given realize the system will single them out.  
A lot of people, sadly, get off on violence or intimidation.  Not me.  But it's that look on someone's face when they know they're boxed in.  That they fucked up.  And that for whatever little they shuttled out of the company or the storage unit...that they screwed themselves over for decades.  that's what I enjoy.  When they look back and see the folly of their ways and wished they had to do it all over again but they can't because I'm there in the room with them.  And they won't be able to get a decent job or see their kids on the weekends because they stole from the wrong person.  No hands will ever be laid upon them, but they'd gladly trade a beating for what's in store for them.  It's the not knowing that really eats at them.  That you can bring a person from this perch of invincibility down to pleading to do anything for you...that's what makes this fun.  I feel bad for the kids sometimes though...but they should have thought of that first.  

This is incredible. I never knew this existed and it is awesome. I see so many execs get away with so much. Finally a way to deal with the issue without mafia tactics. Interesting.
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16 hours ago, Lobo said:

A lot of people, sadly, get off on violence or intimidation.  Not me.  But it's that look on someone's face when they know they're boxed in.  That they fucked up.  And that for whatever little they shuttled out of the company or the storage unit...that they screwed themselves over for decades.  that's what I enjoy.  When they look back and see the folly of their ways and wished they had to do it all over again but they can't because I'm there in the room with them.  And they won't be able to get a decent job or see their kids on the weekends because they stole from the wrong person.  No hands will ever be laid upon them, but they'd gladly trade a beating for what's in store for them.  It's the not knowing that really eats at them.  That you can bring a person from this perch of invincibility down to pleading to do anything for you...that's what makes this fun.  I feel bad for the kids sometimes though...but they should have thought of that first.  

tenor.gif?itemid=13098562

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1 hour ago, XYZ said:

Holy shit, I want to work at Lobo’s “organization”.

It’s not my organization.  It’s somebody we use to help convince existing high level leadership to exit quietly.  The people that did this to the OP knew from video that he wasn’t hauling in artwork or cases of wine or gold bars.  They knew he was bringing in precious family heirlooms.  If they know enough to track activity on certain units, they know enough to what is being carted in, and out, and sitting idle.  They also probably add extra questions to the billing questions so they can ascertain who will be out of country for awhile, who has named a distant relative from Houston as next contact, who listed their backup number as an international prefix SIM card.  

The really fucked up thing is they knew the OP fit a profile of someone who is gonna be gone for a long while, far away.  He won’t be visiting often, he is not storing items he buys and sells as a hobby, and he may have given other indicators that he just needs to store unique items that are not really of market value.  And this fucking asshole took all that intel and tracked him and made him a mark. Then he gets in there and sees that most of the stuff is of no street value.  Could really only command ‘ransom pricing’ from the original owner.  But by that point, it’s admitting guilt and the jig is up on dozens of other units.  My contention remains they either still have them or have burned them.  Only good news is they didn’t fence them to some random party you’ll never track down.  With the access to keypad logs, they are easier to find than I thought.  

An offer of no police involvement and no charges, I think they’ll see it your way.  They won’t gave time to dispose of the things with the right protocol.  you get your irreplaceable items and then the hammer is dropped. They’ll be fucked for life.  Which they’ll probably blame on you. But good news is storage thieves rarely take to family assault.  And if they do, well...people don’t usually go looking for those people.  

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Lolol.

 

Last summer I had my storage unit broken into but I didnt notice anything missing..just rummaged through and actually ended up with a sewing machine that I turned into the pawn shop that owns the storage units...who probably turned around and sold it that day.

 

 

One of the happiest days of my move was getting my shit out of there and into my unfinished basement

 

 

 

When I was replacing my lock after the break in...I told them I had a padlock. One that can be used with bolt cutters...so I bought one of these that needs a loud grinder to break open

 

e5a20bc9cdab21bdb31ee43af3194c82.jpg

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Did you roll over on the "forced entry" part or did you fight back. Does your policy define forced entry? I can't imagine a scenario where removed a lock from a building and entering, without the consent of the owner, isn't forced entry. Its definitely burglary of a building under Texas law.

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Maybe the guy that took your shit just looked at your account? I mean, you have a billing address?

You have any instructions on your account that state that you're out of the country? You ever answer why you are getting a unit to someone? Wife ever tell staff you're moving out of the country?

I know that you think that it's identifiable that you rarely entered the unit, but I would tend to think that that's a much more difficult way to find good units to hit. Most people talk about themselves, and the info is what is used against them.

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On 4/3/2019 at 10:22 PM, Lobo said:

Meh, I'm forgettable.  I'm just the "Yeah, but..." guy at work.  The portfolio companies and operating groups we work with...invariably due the value nature of what we deal with...somebody in leadership gets cute and starts trying to siphon off what they can before they are inevitably shitcanned.  And these people always do the same type of shit over and over again.  They think they are the smartest person in the world and they try and either double-down on their current position, or they see the writing on the wall and try to leave with some parting gifts as Pat Sajak used to say.  And they get an extra level of comfort, like these Public Storage folks, by not being approached by law enforcement and dumping everything before the shit hits the fan.  So we take a different approach.  You get a chance to make things right, no police or anything like that.  If you don't replace what you took (personal effects in this OP case, usually money or brazen expense abuses in our case)...then I have to drop the hammer on you.  Our system has brought down small-cap publicly traded CEO's, I think we can help get Public Storage to cooperate.  The old adage of people with nothing to lose are the hardest to deal with used to be true.  But in this day and age, your shit follows you forever in the digital world so even felons with zero fucks given realize the system will single them out.  

A lot of people, sadly, get off on violence or intimidation.  Not me.  But it's that look on someone's face when they know they're boxed in.  That they fucked up.  And that for whatever little they shuttled out of the company or the storage unit...that they screwed themselves over for decades.  that's what I enjoy.  When they look back and see the folly of their ways and wished they had to do it all over again but they can't because I'm there in the room with them.  And they won't be able to get a decent job or see their kids on the weekends because they stole from the wrong person.  No hands will ever be laid upon them, but they'd gladly trade a beating for what's in store for them.  It's the not knowing that really eats at them.  That you can bring a person from this perch of invincibility down to pleading to do anything for you...that's what makes this fun.  I feel bad for the kids sometimes though...but they should have thought of that first.  

I mean, you can act like you don't get off on violence or intimidation, but this seems like you do...

Clearly I'm not judging you for it, but it's the same description of feelings that mob guys get when they take their revenge.

There's little that sets us apart outside of the fact that your methods are state-sanctioned

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Storage spaces can be dangerous. I had stored stuff Austin Self Storage(formerly Grenada storage). A thief once tried to break a lock leading to the building. A friend of mine had his unit broken into, and the thief(Manuel Muro of Austin/Corpus Christi) used stole his identity. This guy had previously used credit card numbers from his customers at Red Lobster in Austin to steal.

 

The Hancock Center Public Storage has had a few close calls. And yes, you have to worry about employees as well. The security system there has cameras that are probably from the early 90s.

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