You have purchased an abandoned storage unit, have moved the items, and are now ready for sorting your storage auction items.  Here is a plan you could use to make the best use of your time.

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Sorting Your Storage Auction Items

Where To Sort

A good place to sort is a huge table. You need to have lots of trash bags and rubber gloves ready. Have empty 18 gallon plastic totes with lids and a way to label them. Basically, you are going to bring in one box or container at a time and go through it and sort its contents to one of three places: trash, donate, or one of your totes (if small enough to fit) to resell.

A Place For Trash

You should have two places for trash. Put smaller trash in plastic 13 gallon bags and empty cardboard boxes on the porch to keep them dry until our local dump is open (two days a week). You can put the larger trash items next to the garage to make it easier to load into the vehicle. It always amazes us how much trash we find. Even a clean, organized and neatly packed (by a moving company) unit will have items that have been broken during the move or items with stains, rips, holes, paperwork, etc. There are many personal items that do not sell such as old school papers, expired coupons, old mail, newspapers, magazines, etc. Always get a receipt if you pay for trash disposal for tax purposes.

Keep Your Morals

Keep your morals rather than the money. We put things we would not feel right about buying or do not promote in the trash. Some may say it is good money down the drain, but if it causes someone else to fall into sin, temptation or harm themselves or someone else (like a recalled toy or high chair), it is not worth any amount of money so we have more trash.

Donations

The items that are to be donated, we put in cardboard boxes (from units, don't buy them, you will soon have too many) labeled with donation centers like Salvation Army, Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity ReStore etc. and load those in the vehicle to drop off right away. If we have a lot of them and the donation center is not open, they spend the night on the porch.

The Good Stuff

When you find the good items that will be resold, check their condition and clean them if necessary. You may need to put new batteries in electronic items or plug in electronic items to be sure they are in working order. Label the totes as you put items into them. Below are some business names for totes and what goes in them. (Businesses may be named something else in your area, label accordingly.)

Precious Items To Return

If you find birth certificates, high school or college degrees, baby books, and photographs, you put them in a cardboard box and take it back to the owner of the storage unit business and ask them to keep you anonymous and they will contact the old owner to come and get these items by a certain time or they will toss them. It is up to you if you want to do this or not.

Hangers

Save these for group consignment sales, both child size and adult size. If you don't intend to use them, take them to an online auction business to sell them for you as others may need them for group sales, consignment shops, etc. If none of these options are appealing, donate them to a place like Goodwill or Salvation Army.

Categories

All other items will be sorted into categories to sell online or take to certain places to get money for them.  I describe in more detail where to take each type of over 200 items in my book.  

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