“I managed a self storage facility for a couple of years. The stuff that was abandoned was garbage, and didn’t even rise to the level of “junk”. The owner figured out that it wasn’t worth the time and effort to set up sales, so when a unit was abandoned, I just cleaned it out and threw the contents away.”
Like it makes sense to abandon a storage locker with $8000 worth of equipment rather than pay the storage fee or removing the valuable items first.
The only time I could see something like this happening is if the renter dies, and the stuff in the storage unit is unbeknownst to the estate.
There was a female soldier who returned from Afghanistan only to find the military hadn't paid for her storage unit as had been pre-arranged and everything she owned had been auctioned off. There was a thread on FR a while back.