Self-Storage Unit Cleaned Out Without Permission

[patrickatl]

I'm in Atlanta, GA.
I have had a self-storage unit for about 5 years. I went to drop some stuff off yesterday and was told that I moved out 10 months ago. I never moved out and NO ONE had my gate code or a key to the unit except me.
The agent at the facility told me that when they did their rounds on Dec. 4, 2005, they found the unit open, clean, and 'ready to be occupied'.
They never contacted me.
I have no idea where my stuff is.
What recourse do I have? I have no proof that they did anything wrong. For all I know, what they are saying is true. Maybe they did find it 'ready to be occupied'. I have no way of knowing.
Thanks,
Patrick

[aaron]

You paid rent through what date?

[patrickatl]

I'm waiting on my banking records, but according to their records, they stopped the automatic withdrawal from my account in Nov. of 2005. I never noticed that they stopped taking the money out.
I travel a LOT, so I have a LOT of stuff taken out of my account automatically.
I have no trouble believing that they quit charging me last year, but I'll know for sure as soon as I get the records from my bank.

[patrickatl]

I went to talk to them again.
It is their position that if I didn't move out, then I was robbed. The 'thief' was very thorough and took every single bit of my stuff and cleaned up the unit to the point that they thought I moved out.
This being the case, they insisted that I get a police report.
I called the police and had them meet me at the leasing office. The officer told me that it is obviously a Civil matter, not a criminal matter. However, he was nice enough to write up a report.
I have to wait two days before I can get the report from central records.

[patrickatl]

Got the records from my bank. The last time they charged me was Dec. 6.

[aaron]

I have a suspicion that somebody cancelled your account and cleaned out your storage unit. Almost certainly somebody you know.

Did you have any items in the unit that, if sold, would be likely to appear in a classified ad (online or in the newspaper), or might have ended up at a pawn shop? It's a slog to try to track down the associated records, but it may be possible to track down the person responsible if you can find out how or where any of your belongings were disposed of.

[rmet4nzkx]

I have a suspicion that somebody cancelled your account and cleaned out your storage unit. Almost certainly somebody you know.

Did you have any items in the unit that, if sold, would be likely to appear in a classified ad (online or in the newspaper), or might have ended up at a pawn shop? It's a slog to try to track down the associated records, but it may be possible to track down the person responsible if you can find out how or where any of your belongings were disposed of.

Since these storage facilities have access codes to enter the facility and usually the gate closes after the vehicle or person passes to prevent more than one vehicle coming through but not always, the facility may have a record of all the passcodes/units# entered in the 24 hour period/or time between inventories prior to discovering the unit abandoned. That should give a clue as to who may have accessed or taken the items, another possibility is your unit was confused with another with a similar number that had not paid and your unit was auctioned off by mistake?

Did you give your passcode or ket to anyone else? was your passcode still active when you arrived at the storage facility? Did you recieve any notice by mail about your account being closed?

[patrickatl]

No one I know had my code or a key to my unit. I can't even think of anyone who knew I had a storage unit at this place.
Now that I have been telling people what happened, everyone is kind of surprised to find out that I even had a storage unit.
I have asked the management to search the gate code records, but since we have no idea when the unit was cleaned out, it is kind of useless. They can prove that no one used my code, but that doesn't really help.

[aaron]

The agent at the facility told me that when they did their rounds on Dec. 4, 2005, they found the unit open, clean, and 'ready to be occupied'.

I have asked the management to search the gate code records, but since we have no idea when the unit was cleaned out, it is kind of useless.

It was apparently cleaned out between the last date before December 4, 2005 upon which "they did their rounds", and December 4, 2005. Do they "do their rounds" every day?

[patrickatl]

There are no notes about my unit previous to Dec. 4th 2005. However, according to management, that doesn't mean that the unit was not in that condition for days prior.
Essentially, they don't want to help me at all. They don't want to give me any information or assistance that they don't have to.