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After Dave Hester left Storage Wars, he opened up that the producers had been planting items every show.

I find this interesting because I grew up following my grandparents who owned a successful business reselling these items. I find it funny that they would upbid the lockers of boxes for 2-3k when these usually go for 1/10th that price.

Now some of the things found on the show have been pretty ridiculous. What I find funny though is that the MOST ridiculous was Darrel's stash of high priced art he found. It is the most ridiculous to me because this would seem impossible to fake. The art community is just too inquisitive.

So is there any evidence other than Hester's rant that the producers "faked" the shows by "salting" the storage lockers?

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  • Nothing specific has ever come out, and probably never will beause of the contracts they signed that state they can't discuss anything or they will be subjected to lawsuits. However, there supposedly exist emails where buyers were asked (in season 1) to provide their own "special finds", and the producers would "rent" them until they could be "discovered" by the buyer. So, again "supposedly", there exists emails and reimbursement checks that confirm this. Aside from that, if you think that there is that much interesting stuff in an average storage locker, you've never been to an auction.
    – Johnny Bones
    Feb 14, 2015 at 17:59

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There's quite a lot going on with Storage Wars and a lot of it is vague (presumably due to potential legal concerns) but there have been instances of people who've turned up to watch filming noticing that the final product that airs is heavily cut and there have been a lot of "rumors" about items being moved or planted. Storage Wars executive producer Thom Beers has previously admitted to staging some of the cast member's lines and moving items between storage lots:

“Nope. I can honestly tell you that the stuff found in those containers are found in storage containers. Now what I will tell you this: We have 20, 30 auctions, and so occasionally maybe one piece shows for one auction container, storage locker to another, you know, but that’s as far as we’ll go. That’s, I think, important.”

Basically meaning, as the show only shows a small handful of lockers, they actually film many more and do move interesting items between lockers.

Like all reality TV, you should probably take the validity of everything you see with a pinch of salt, as ratings do matter at the end of the day...

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  • A note to your answer. It might be a "different" show but I would much rather see people buy trash and cry about it then find obviously staged stuff. With my history in storage auctions I find it ludicrous that a room full of junk gets $800 bid. It would be awesome watching these people in their pitiful misery. Now the one thing I find very true about the show. The buyers often don't make a ton of money and have small shops and drive cars that equal their yearly income.
    – blankip
    Nov 5, 2015 at 17:17

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