in 2012, Mary Padian came aboard the second season of Storage Wars: Texas, one of several spinoffs from the original Storage Wars reality series that premiered in 2010 and is set in California — and it almost seems as though she was destined to be there.
Throughout her life, Padian had been drawn to treasure hunting. While she was growing up, her father owned a company that accumulates scrap metal to melt down and ship back overseas for reuse. Upcycling turns out to be a family trait, and Padian has not only embraced it, but also turned it into a unique career of her own.
As an adult, she opened a shop of her own selling secondhand items — some of those, Padian would find out later, she had initially purchased from Moe Prigoff, a storage unit buyer featured on the first season of Storage Wars: Texas — that she would fix and redesign to sell to interior designers. This knack for plucking gold from seeming trash and remake into art was what got her noticed by producers for the program and eventually earned her the TV-nickname “The Junker.” After Padian appeared on 62 episodes throughout seasons 2 and 3 of the series, Storage Wars: Texas was suddenly canceled in 2014. What happened to Padian after the ending that came far too soon, and what is she up to today?
Mary Padian has made upcycling a complete lifestyle
Alanna Quillen/NBCDFW.COM
Despite the Texas Storage Wars spinoff cancellation, Padian was apparently so well-received by producers that they, in an act of poetic recycling that’s not lost on us, asked her to pick up and move her entire life out to California to join the mothership show Storage Wars as another featured buyer. She’s not on every episode, but she’s very much still a part of that production — appearing all the way up to season 12, which aired in 2018 and 2019. There’s no confirmation right now for a 13th season of Storage Wars, but there’s no reason to believe that Padian won’t return along with it if more episodes happen. After all, she frequently posts to her Instagram account using the hashtag #storagewars, usually in the form of selfies with co-stars. She’s also become very good friends with fellow Storage Wars personality Brandi Passante since making the transition to California.
While Mary’s Finds, the brick-and-mortar store in Texas that initially got her the TV job is no longer operating, Padian is still in the upcycling business via an online version of the business under the same name — and yes, it does indeed feature some of the items she finds on the show once they’re spruced back up. No doubt that keeps her plenty busy between seasons, but she isn’t content with just the fabulous flipping lifestyle.
As of summer 2019, Padian returned to her roots in Texas, bouncing between Dallas and Austin, to represent a charity close to her heart called Ubuntu Life. The non-profit sells fair-trade crafts made by Kenyan women to raise money to operate a specialty clinic for kids with neurological issues in the country, as well as provide the mothers making the crafts with long-term sustainable jobs. This activism is also featured on Padian’s Instagram and Twitter accounts, where she recently introduced a product called “Joy Bracelets” that she helped design for manufacture in Kenya, all proceeds from which go to the charity.
We have to say it’s pretty refreshing to see someone from reality television — a business that’s often framed by selfishness and interpersonal drama — who’s so devoted to taking her fame and giving back in all the right ways. Even if Storage Wars doesn’t continue and her fame fades, we’re certain Mary Padian’s bubbly and kind nature won’t ever be dimmed.
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TELEVISION REALITY TV
Where Is The Original Cast Of Storage Wars Today?
BY GREGORY LAWRENCEUPDATED: JAN. 31, 2023 10:51 AM EST
If you’re looking for something to binge on a lazy Sunday (or a lazy any other day, we’re not here to judge), we’ve got a reality show for you. Storage Wars, on A&E, highlights the curious subculture of folks who attend auctions of storage lockers that are three months behind on rent. For what purpose? To sort through the locker’s contents in the hopes of finding the modern equivalent of buried treasure, which the buyer will then sell themselves, in an Inception-esque loop of auctioning and buying. It is, without any trace of irony, a fascinating, supremely entertaining watch. A huge part of its appeal comes from its colorful cast of real-life characters, who bounce off one another with a unique chemistry any network sitcom would go to war for. So now that A&E has unearthed this heretofore unheard of group of people, giving them a taste of unscripted fame, one question remains: What is the original cast of Storage Wars up to now? The bidding starts… now.
Don’t forget to pay the auctioneers
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A husband and wife team, Dan and Laura Dotson were the main auctioneers for the entire run of Storage Wars. Their auction style was marked by classic fast-talking patter, with the occasional reality-TV-friendly squabble with a bidder. Laura also had an irresistibly old-fashioned catchphrase: “Don’t forget to pay the lady!” Now, Dan and Laura run their own private auctioneering company, called American Auctioneers. They offer up auctions to the general public throughout California, most of which are typical legal sales and seized lockers, but some of which have special themes (like the Cars Stars And Rock ‘N’ Roll event in February 2019). The couple also runs StorageAuctions.net, which acts as an online database and facilitator for storage facility auctions across the country. In 2018, the Dotsons discovered they sold a special locker to a client for $500. Inside the locker? $7.5 million in cash. The deal was made outside of the Dotsons’ commitments to Storage Wars, but their costar Rene Nezhoda theorized it was likely cartel or mafia money. Thankfully, since Dan’s 2014 double aneurysm scare (immortalized in Storage Wars episode “The Daneurysm”), the couple has remained in good health.
One word, three u’s
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He’s the closest the show had to an outright villain. He got into fights with his fellow bidders and even the impartial auctioneers. He raised the prices on lockers he had no intention of buying. And he did it all with an infectiously aggravating, legally trademarked “YUUUP!” He’s Dave Hester, aka “The Mogul,” the “chaotic neutral” member of the Storage Wars cast. And in 2012, he tried to blow the lid off the whole operation. Hester complained to A&E producers that the program was largely faked, with planted items and storylines exaggerated for optimum drama and entertainment value. A&E’s response? A pink slip in Hester’s locker. So Hester filed a wrongful termination suit for $750,000 in damages, going into detail about the fakeries presented in the show, and asserting that Hester was “not comfortable participating in this charade.” However, the suit was settled in 2014, and Hester returned to the show for the remainder of its run. Now, he runs an independent business as an auctioneer and consultant. In an interview with SpareFoot, he said his eventual goal would be “to buy a motor home — and not even have a home address anymore — and just travel from one town to the next and be a gypsy auctioneer.”
The Nutrisystem works
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Known as “The Gambler,” Darrell Sheets made big swings on Storage Wars, often scoring big. He once bought a locker for $3,600, only to discover it contained artwork worth $300,000. This was far and away the biggest profit made on the entire show’s run. Now, he’s retired from public life. Sheets has also undergone a dramatic weight loss, shedding approximately 40 pounds using the Nutrisystem method. Sheets spoke of his weight loss journey as an extension of hope. “Hope is having 200 bucks to buy a locker and a chance to change your life. It’s that same hope that motivated me to lose weight. I knew life would be much sweeter when I achieved my goal. Now, I want to spread that message of hope to others. If I can change one life at a time by helping someone get off the couch, I will be happy.”
The joys of #AverageMiddleclass
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Darrell has another child beyond Zoie, but if you’re a fan of the show, you already knew that. Brandon Sheets was a regular cast member for the first eight seasons of Storage Wars, earning the nickname “The Sidebet.” He grew up learning the trade from his father, and he made his business decisions armed only with a GED and a storage locker’s worth of street smarts. But in 2016, his newfound TV career came to an abrupt stop. On December 16 of that year, he tweeted that he was “no longer affiliated” with the show, having been let go for budget reasons. As the series went on without him, Sheets relocated to Arizona and became a licensed real estate agent. On his social media accounts, Sheets still seems to express interest in on-camera entertainment, as he creates small episodes that are a hybrid of vlog and webseries. His most prolific series is something he calls #AverageMiddleclass, a tongue-in-cheek spoof of MTV’s Cribs in which Sheets brags about normal, average, middle-class things.
A professional slacker is born
IMDb/Closer Weekly
Barry Weiss is a collector. Of antiques, by trade, but also of his audience’s enjoyment. On Storage Wars, Weiss disarmed everyone with his unorthodox bidding style and rat-a-tat roasts against his fellow storage warriors. He impressed A&E so much that in 2014, he left the original show and was given his own spinoff, Barry’d Treasure. On the show, which lasted for eight episodes, he traveled across the country in search of hidden goodies and knick-knacks, showing off his knowledge of classic cars in the process. The following year, he was given yet another A&E spinoff, called Storage Wars: Barry Strikes Back. Co-hosted with fellow cast member Kenny Crossley, Weiss guided viewers through his favorite Storage Wars episodes and moments, offering behind-the-scenes tidbits along the way. Currently, Weiss has stepped away somewhat from public life — he hasn’t tweeted since 2014. In a couple of rare recent interviews (which were, to be fair, foisted on him without prior knowledge), Weiss said he won’t be appearing on TV anytime soon, content with living life as a “professional slacker.” When pressed, though, he admitted that he’d potentially be interested in hosting a show about cars and motorcycles.
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A light in the Attic
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Before he built up his auctioning grit on Storage Wars, Ivy Calvin had a history of professional conflict. In the 1990s, Calvin played for the San Jose Sabercats in the arena football league, although he was cut abruptly after only seven games (in a Los Angeles Times interview, he stated that despite being cut, his dream was “still to play NFL ball”). Then, Calvin pivoted to MMA fighting — only one match is listed in his official record, a 2002 cage fight against Samu Samu, but he won by submission. Finally, Calvin was scooped up by A&E as a new Storage Wars cast member, cutting a no-nonsense figure on the program. Nowadays, Calvin stays out of the limelight. He runs a thrift store in Palmdale, CA called Grandma’s Attic, and his social media accounts are primarily devoted to detailing the inventory at his store. A tweet written on February 10, 2019 sums up Calvin’s current interests: “Grandmas attic is open open open.”
Bargain season
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Ready for another Storage Wars power couple? Husband and wife team Rene and Casey Nezhoda joined the show in season four. They turned heads with, as their A&E bio puts it, their “big bankroll and an extensive knowledge of secondhand sales” — not to mention Rene’s thick German accent. Their expertise in secondhand purchases comes from their experience owning their own business, Bargain Hunters Thrift Store, located in Poway, CA (one sample review on their Yelp page: “Why is everyone here SO DAMN NICE!?”). Beyond their store responsibilities, the Nezhodas maintain an on-camera presence, posting a series of YouTube videos that run the gamut from unboxings, live auctions, overviews of collections, interactions with fans, and even classic vlogging. In November 2018, the Nezhodas revealed that they purchased Farrah Fawcett’s storage lockers for $3,500. However, Rene viewed the experience as a bit of a bust: “It wasn’t what we wanted. It wasn’t this mega-explosion unit. But we still found some stuff.” This auction also spurred a series of legal actions, as Fawcett’s nephew didn’t believe a representative of Fawcett’s estate had the right to sell her items like this. When they’re not accidentally ruffling feathers, the Nezhodas also enjoy spending family time with their daughter, Tatianna.
What hath Mary found?
Twitter/Twitter
Mary Padian’s Storage Wars journey began on a spinoff. After her stint on Storage Wars: Texas, Padian was brought on board the main ship in season five. She earned her nickname “The Junkster” based on her devil-may-care attitude toward finding treasures — she was just as comfortable “diving in dumpsters” as she was bidding on traditional auctions. Currently, Padian maintains a vintage store called Mary’s Finds, which sells, as Padian describes it, “an eclectic mix of found treasures refurbished or untouched,” many of which were featured in Padian’s personal Storage Wars journeys. Padian has also worked extensively with Ubuntu Life, an organization dedicated to helping “children with special needs in Kenya by selling products that connect our customers to the lives being changed.” Padian personally visited Kenya, met with many of the locals, and collected treasures along the way. She originally sold some of her finds on her website, with 20% of the proceeds going directly to Ubuntu Life.
