The reality behind reality TV's storage wars

A recent trend in reality TV has our contributor Conor Knighton really concerned:

A&E's "Storage Wars," a show about people who bid on the contents of abandoned storage lockers, had its second season premiere this summer to 5.1 million viewers. It's the HIGHEST RATED show in the network's history.

Tru TV's nearly identical "Storage Hunters" has become a breakout hit - ALMOST as big of a hit as Spike's nearly identical "Auction Hunters."

That's right. There are three DIFFERENT shows on TV about STORAGE LOCKERS.

Reality TV is frequently trashy, but never before has it featured so much actual trash.

On these shows, men (and it's almost always men) bid hundreds of dollars on what look like rooms of junk, hoping that - buried deep inside - they might find some vintage comic books, jewelry, or (if they're really lucky) a severed head, like in "Silence of the Lambs"!

They're looking for times they might sell for profit. They've got big personalities and, in these tough times, it's fun to see people turn trash into treasure.

But there's a part you don't see on TV: The people who had to abandon their lockers BECAUSE of these tough times.

If you don't pay your rent on time, your locker goes to auction. So, every financial victory on these shows is only possible because of someone else's financial failure.

That locker with the cool vintage clock? It probably also contains family photo albums, precious keepsakes. It contains someone's LIFE.

It really makes you think twice about ever renting a storage locker, lest the same fate befall you.

So I guess I'm just going to keep my junk piled up in my house.

Then, I'll only end up on A&E's OTHER popular reality show - "Hoarders."