Maybe I'm the odd man out, but if I had a collection that was my life's dream and was worth a half million dollars I think I'd find a way somehow to raise the necessary $4,000 or so in the six months or so that he had to avoid this.
MikeS, you're often abrasive on this forum, and I'm hit and miss on what I see eye-to-eye with you on (not that you'd ever have known, as I've never commented on it before!!), but you've hit the nail on the head.
I've only read his personal account (the last PDF in the link provided in the other thread). He had quite a bit of back-rent that was originally owed. Even as far away as those pictures you linked are (and wow, that is an impressive collection!!) - I can see much duplicated equipment. He should've picked 5 items that would've brought him some bucks, put them on eBay, made it known amongst all of his industry/museum/collecting contacts that these were his collection, outlined the pieces' lineages, and walked away with the likely $10k he'd have gotten, assured that his rent was paid ahead for a few months.
I feel for the guy in losing his life's work. Truly, I do. But honestly... he has absolutely no one to blame but himself. And therein lies the tragedy.
To my mind, the owner of the warehouse space provided adequate time. It's the renter's problem if he doesn't have the help/capital to clear a 10,500sqft warehouse within the what? extra month he was given? Or put the word out and let the community help - the $5 per head that most of us could have donated without feeling it would've went a long way towards hiring a few movers and a truck or two.
Sure, the warehouse owner could've contacted an insider or even Sellam himself and said "Pick 50 items - enough that will guarantee us at least $10,000 should they be sold at auction. Because I'm auctioning them on eBay - we split it 60/40, and my 60% will pay the back-rent that you owe me. Your 40% can go towards future rent, 2 months of which I'll be taking in advance as a deposit should you get yourself in arrears again."
But uh.... why would the owner do that? What incentive would he have had when all he got, from Sellam's own words, were excuse after excuse about why the rent was late, proving that there'd be no guarantee of future rental earning, and promising further problems in the future? When the law was on his side to rightfully seize the entire collection? When this wasn't his brother, son, nephew, cousin, neighbor, or friend to whom he owed the hand-holding and babying?
Simply put... he wouldn't. I wouldn't. And I'm into this stuff.
I don't know Sellam, I've never corresponded with or met him, but I feel for him, and I hope that he doesn't do something stupid should he go down into depression.... but this is a self-created problem. And one that could have relatively easily been avoided, even by selling off one duplicated piece of gear a month to go towards the rent, whether necessary to make that month's rent or not, because if it wasn't needed, then it could've been put into a nest-egg for future rental, just in case. I mean, if after several months of not paying it, the back-rent was only $3800, how much could it have been to rent it each month? Couldn't even a relatively few pieces have been being sold all along just to help cover expenses? C'mon...