A Storage Company Auctioned My Life's Work — Illegally — While I Was in the Hospital
Help Me Fight Back
My name is Peter McArdle. I'm a New York City filmmaker, photographer, and artist. I have a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University. In 2002, my thesis film — The Beatle Fan, starring Peter Stormare — was an Official Selection of the Tribeca Film Festival. It also screened at the Raindance Film Festival in London.
The 35mm print of that film was in my storage unit in Queens when SecureSpace Self Storage auctioned everything I owned.
They did it illegally. While I was in the hospital with a stroke, in violation of the City's Lien Law and without notification, And I need your help to sue them.
What They Took
Every artist everywhere who has a storage unit understands what it means. It's not just stuff. It contained my creative work-- it's my professional output and the tools I used to make it.
Mine contained:
The 35mm print of The Beatle Fan. I shot on a Sony 3-chip color broadcast camera and transferred to 35mm at a lab here in New York so we could screen at Regal Cinema and festival venues. That print is the only one. There is no other copy. It represented my MFA thesis, my entry into professional filmmaking, and a documented moment in the history of the Tribeca Film Festival. It is gone.
Thousands of my original photographic prints — work I had been curating for years, preparing to sell at art festivals and shows across New York. My livelihood. My life's work as a visual artist.
Multiple computers and stored documents. Years of digital work, files, and records.
Professional cameras and equipment. Years of investment in the tools of my craft.
Both of my parents' belongings. They passed within the last decade. What was in that unit was what remained of them in the physical world.
Irreplaceable family photographs. Originals. Of people who are no longer alive.
Antiques, furniture, artwork, clothing. Everything.
They auctioned all of it to recover a debt of less than five hundred dollars, while I was in the hospital..
They did it illegally. And I need your help to sue them.
Why I'm Fighting This
New York Lien Law § 182 gives me the right to sue. If I win, I can collect up to three times my actual damages, and SecureSpace pays my attorney's fees. I already filed a DCWP complaint against SecureSpace, Self Storage.
But the sad reality is that NYC lawyers are disinclined to take cases like this on contingency basis. SecureSpace Self Storage will argue that the value of my property was next to nothing and without a professional lawyer, the court might agree.
That's what I'm trying to raise the retainer here. I will retain a Queens civil litigation attorney to file suit against SecureSpace Self Storage for breach of contract, unlawful lien foreclosure, and predatory business practices.
