Does Dave Hester love to be hated? My theory on this is that he’s a hardcore businessman out for his own best interests and will do anything to take down the competition. If he looks like a big jerk doing it, so be it. With his brigade of “Yuuuup!” trucks, his caustic attitude, and his devious plans to drive the price of lockers up and make those who win them pay way over their value, Dave is one of reality TV’s best villains. And he’s the perfect bad guy for a show like Storage Wars.
Most of the main cast of the series are seemingly decent folks trying to make a living bidding on abandoned storage lockers and re-selling their contents for their own profit. Whether at their own auctions, swap meets, or stores, Darrell Sheets, Jarrod Schulz & Brandi Passante, and Barry Weiss know what their talking about when it comes to the items they spy in the lockers they go after. Sometimes they make good; other times they blow it big time.
My favorite person of the series is collector Barry Weiss, an eccentric older gentleman who comes to auctions is cool classic cars, vintage clothes, and usually with a zany scheme in his back pocket. He’s said that his motive is to distract the other buyers, but I think he’s just there to have some fun. Of all the bidders on the show, he seems to be the one that gets the shaft the most with his choices of lockers.
Critics have gone after the series for being fake. And while I applaud them for being obsessed enough with the show to come to this conclusion (and write several articles online about it), I have to make one point clear: IT’S A TV SHOW! It’s meant for entertainment. It’s edited. It’s somewhat scripted for dramatic purposes. While there are times when I find it odd that a junky locker suddenly has one item inside worth $5000, it doesn’t make me want to go out and bid on storage lockers. It’s entertainment for entertainment’s sake. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I was watching the show with some people recently and they brought up the obvious fact that the value these guys estimate they will get from selling all the stuff from their bought lockers is somewhat of an irrelevant number. It’s what they think they can get, not what they actually got, so it can be a bit misleading. Again, it’s a moot point since in theory these guys know what they’re talking about, but I would be curious to know how much they actually do make off of a locker once they piece, price, and sell its contents.
Storage Wars is an amusing and fun show. It’s addictive, it’s funny at times, and it has a wacky cast of characters. I highly recommend this series.
Storage Wars: Volume Three is available NOW on DVD!
Who’s your favorite Storage Wars buyer? Leave a comment and let us know!