Moving and Storage Business News

The News Review:

- Moving firm filling its own empty spot after co-founder’s death
- Homstie interviewed by Technology News Examiner
- Strategic Storage Trust Celebrates ne-Year Anniversary
- Adolf Hitler’s first self-portrait up for auction

Moving firm filling its own empty spot after co-founder’s death
Dallas Morning News
While Simple Movers has had to deal with the death of its co-founder the faltering economy has hit the $16. 5 billion moving industry hard. "Times are tough right now" said John Bisney spokesman for the American Moving and Storage Association. "People don’t have the money to hire professional movers and companies aren’t moving as many people. " Total moving shipments fell 10 percent last year reflecting the housing crisis and high unemployment according to the association. Most of the nation’s 8100 moving companies are small businesses. Simple Movers provides full service for any move originating in Texas and it provides contract movers nationwide.

Homstie interviewed by Technology News Examiner
Examiner.com
What’s the story behind how you started the company? Founder Chuck Gordon came up with the idea behind Homstie during his third year at UCLA. He was moving out of his apartment leaving to study abroad in Singapore and wasn’t planning on returning to Los Angeles until the following fall. He faced a tough predicament – what to do with all his stuff? It seemed like he had two options: A) self-storage or B) get rid of it. Neither option was appealing. Enter option C): store his stuff with other people. Chuck found a welcoming garage in San Diego to drop off a few boxes and a friendly living room to house his eight-foot tall rocket ship sculpture.

Strategic Storage Trust Celebrates ne-Year Anniversary
Inside Self-Storage
celebrated its one-year anniversary on March 20. The company is a publicly registered non-traded real estate investment trust with $1 billion of common stock. The company’s portfolio includes 3024 self-storage units with 407000 rentable square feet of storage space.   ver the past year Strategic Storage Trust has acquired six self-storage facilities in prime markets throughout the United States.   Source: CMetro.

Adolf Hitler’s first self-portrait up for auction
Telegraph.co.uk
Each of the pieces by the then struggling artist have been individually viewed and authenticated by the late Peter Jahn a renowned expert on the Austrian period of Hitler’s life. The pictures are mainly of flowers and picturesque landscapes. These pieces along with other artefacts were found by Company Sergeant Major Willie J McKenna when he was stationed in Essen Germany in 1945. They were then sold direct to the present vendor who has not revealed his identity and were kept out of sight for decades. Now they will be auctioned at Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire by Mullocks on April 23 where they are expected to fetch tens of thousands of pounds. Self portraits of Hitler that have survived the war are rare a 1926 pencil sketch sold for £1050 in 1999 in North Lincolnshire. This latest piece is thought to be the earliest example of the dictator painting a picture of himself.
Related from Auctionsmonster: Man pleads guilty in stolen Hitler bookmark case