These Minnesotans tried to pay late rent on storage units. A company had already sold their stuff.

The items packed into James McGraw’s storage unit in Rosemount marked milestones in his life, from his birth certificate to old photos to his high school diploma.

Last June, after falling behind on rent, he tried to access his Public Storage account to pay roughly $350 he owed — and halt a scheduled auction of practically everything he owned.

But McGraw suddenly found he couldn’t log in. Confused, he dashed off an email to a manager with the corporate storage company, panic mounting as he remembered the cherished possessions in his spacious locker.

Hockey equipment. Hunting gear. Golf clubs.

“I want to know where my stuff is and when I can get it back,” he wrote in one of several messages he shared with the Minnesota Star Tribune.

McGraw alleges in a lawsuit that the company tossed out his items almost a week before a posted auction date. His complaint, set for a court hearing in March, is one of dozens that Minnesotans have filed against the California-based self-storage giant, whose facilities have spread across the Twin Cities metro area.

A Minnesota Star Tribune analysis of about 50 lawsuits filed against Public Storage over the past decade in the state found a dozen people asserted that the company disposed of their possessions or scheduled auctions, sometimes without notice or while the company continued processing their rent payments. Among the reported losses: family members’ ashes, a device for monitoring blood sugar, an expensive medical recliner.

Another dozen people alleged that items were stolen or otherwise removed from lockers on the company’s watch without the renter’s consent, including a flat-screen television, a computer, a motorcycle and a car.

Public Storage’s chief legal officer didn’t respond to requests for comment or a list of questions about allegations that the company emptied units ahead of schedule.

Timothy Dietz, the president and CEO of the national Self Storage Association, said in an email that the episodes described in the lawsuits are extremely rare. Customers, Dietz added, have remedies to deal with problems that occasionally arise in the collections process.

“We’ve seen our industry go to great lengths to satisfy those situations,” Dietz wrote.

The Minnesota plaintiffs lost their cases against Public Storage about four-fifths of the time.

Attorneys represented the company every time it was summoned to court. In contrast, documents suggested very few defendants retained lawyers, with most cases filed in conciliation court.

The renters who spoke with the Star Tribune were storing their furniture and childhood mementos in the banks of orange-doored lockers that dot the Twin Cities.

From a brick building in Bloomington to a low-slung structure in Little Canada, Public Storage facilities provide thousands of Minnesotans an out-of-sight place to offload their stuff, with deals enticing prospective customers with $1 rent for the first month.

A flurry of new locations enlarged the company’s footprint in the state by 12% in 2023. A trade website estimates self-storage facilities in Minnesota cover about 22.4 million square feet, roughly equal to the size of 13 U.S. Bank stadiums.

Behind the bright doors, a host of problems have left people furious with the metro area’s most visible self-storage company, according to interviews with renters and hundreds of pages of court records.

Rep. Esther Agbaje, a Minneapolis DFLer, updated a bill in 2021 to strengthen protection for self-storage renters, intending to safeguard the most vulnerable customers who might be fleeing domestic violence or bouncing between shelters.

The amended law permits people facing auction over unpaid rent to retrieve personal documents and medical items from their units, regardless of value. (Previously, renters in those circumstances could only grab such possessions if they were under $50 each.)

But the House member said she wasn’t surprised to learn problems persist.

“I think sometimes,” Agbaje said, “some of these places focus more on the profit than the people.”

Walter Ward was baffled after discovering Public Storage auctioned off the contents of his Eden Prairie locker in the fall of 2023, when he tried to pay $375 in late rent and fees.

In the sale’s aftermath, a district manager offered to refund Ward the past-due rent he ultimately paid, Ward said. Unsatisfied with that offer, he took the company to court.

A conciliation court referee in Hennepin County granted him $15,000 in June, after a Public Storage employee failed to show up to a hearing.

But an attorney for the company asked the court to vacate the judgment, claiming Public Storage was never served a summons and complaint. A judge agreed, and a court referee ruled in November that Ward, who couldn’t afford a lawyer, wasn’t entitled to any relief.

Ward estimated the construction equipment and furniture he lost totaled $70,000. He had to forfeit two jobs last summer after losing the tools needed for the work. Today, he regards the ordeal with a mix of resignation and resentment.

“Nothing can be done about it,” he said.

McGraw, the Rosemount renter, said he had been late on rent before, though he always paid off past-due bills.

He missed a two-week window the company prescribed for making the late rent. But when he tried to pay in June, four days remained until Public Storage planned to offload his possessions. He said his calls and emails to the company went unanswered in the months after the sale.

He believes a state statute should have barred the company from throwing out his items ahead of schedule. That law indicates people can avert sales if they pay off debt before the scheduled sale.

McGraw, like many renters who take corporate storage companies to court, doesn’t have a lawyer. Attorneys for the company have denied his allegations in legal filings. But he said he won’t give up.

“I don’t even know if I really care about the money or winning,” he said. “What they did to me was horrible.”

In legal filings, attorneys for Public Storage have argued that certain statutes of limitation and terms of the company’s rental agreement invalidate plaintiffs' complaints. Storage companies, too, are entitled to take possession of property from customers who fail to pay rent.

Five cases Public Storage brought against renters over nonpayment in 2023 showed they owed the company an average of about $2,900, with messages informing customers of their debt weeks before Public Storage took legal action.

Sabrina Thomas said she lost a trove of family history when she was late on a payment last year.

On a Monday in August, an employee warned her that her unit in downtown Minneapolis would go to auction if she didn’t pay about $300 she owed, she said. Then, according to Thomas, he gave her the go-ahead to pay on Friday.

But when she tapped her information into a Public Storage kiosk that day, Thomas said she learned the company had sold her belongings two days earlier.

Gone are her late brother’s ashes and stacks of letters, her mother’s precious Bibles and choir robes.

“I cried and cried many days,” she said.

Thomas joined the scores of people who unsuccessfully sued Public Storage; a court referee dismissed her case in January.

She’s still renting with the company, though, stashing her Christmas decorations and clothes in a new unit.

Thomas doesn’t have a garage at her apartment. So, for now, the orange-doored locker will have to do.