PRIMARY SOURCE
This is the plain-language edition of the storage units. Same facts, same sources, none of the record numbers, nothing put into the colored grade boxes. Every claim below is stated again on the cited edition, with the review links and the timeline attached.
A man rented moving trucks around the takeover of a LEGO store. It turns out he also rented storage. He left public reviews of the storage, under his own name, and the reviews put him in rented units in three Oregon towns across the year of the takeover. The reviews say a unit was rented, and later that a unit was given up. They do not say what was kept inside.
U-Haul lets a customer rate a place after they rent a truck or a storage unit, and it posts the rating in public under the customer’s name, with the town, the date, and whether it was a move-in or a close-out. Three of these are signed “Brandon B,” at U-Haul storage in Salem, in Eugene, and in Gresham. Brandon Best is the man who runs the company’s Oregon stores, and he lives in Utah.
In late May 2024, about five months before the takeover, “Brandon B” left a five-star move-in review at a U-Haul storage place in Salem, the county the taken-over store sits in. A move-in review is the one you get when you rent a unit. He wrote that it was a little pricey but the units were solid and the service was good.
In early January 2025, about seven weeks after the takeover, “Brandon B” left a one-star review at the U-Haul on River Road in Eugene. He complained that the rates went up and that the staff were rude when, in his words, they closed out their unit. This is the same Eugene lot that rented the man the moving truck back in October. Eugene is the town where the LEGO showed up for sale.
In late March 2025 he left a five-star review, with no words, at a U-Haul storage place in Gresham, up near Portland. That one is further away and adds the least. It is here so nothing is left out.
A storage unit rented in Salem in May. A scouting trip and a first moving truck in October. The takeover and a second moving truck in November. The LEGO starting to show up for sale on the Eugene store’s own website in December. The Eugene storage unit closed out in January, at the same lot that rented the October truck. A Gresham review in March. And the LEGO still going up for sale, a little at a time, through the next spring.
The reviews are real and they are signed. But “Brandon B” is not a full name, and it is a common one, so calling him Brandon Best is a reasonable read, not a sure thing. It is strongest in Eugene, where the review sits at the very lot that rented him the truck, in the town where the LEGO turned up. It is weakest in Gresham, which is far off the road the trucks drove. And none of the three says what was in any unit. A move-in review says a unit was rented. A close-out review says it was given up. Neither says what sat inside in between. The same limit that applied to the trucks applies here: the record shows the space, not what was in it.
To be fair: plenty of people and businesses rent storage for ordinary reasons, and a company that runs stores in a state where its operator does not live may rent storage too. A review signed “Brandon B” is not proof of who wrote it, and none of these reviews mentions LEGO, inventory, or anything taken from the store. No court has ruled on any of this. Everyone named is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and nothing here is a finding that anyone committed a crime.
The company’s story put a camper in Oregon before the takeover and a moving truck on the road during it. The man’s own reviews put rented storage in Oregon on both sides of it: a unit in Salem before, and a unit in Eugene closed out after, at the same lot that rented the truck. What moved through that storage, the reviews do not say.
Where this comes from. The three reviews are on U-Haul’s own website, under the storage locations in Salem, Eugene, and Gresham. The two moving-truck rentals are the man’s own U-Haul records, laid out in the second U-Haul. That he runs the company’s Keizer and Eugene stores is in the company’s franchise filings. The camper story is the chief executive’s, from the video where the company laid out its account. All of it, with the links and the dates, is on the cited edition.
The BAM Map is independent reporting on matters of public concern. Nothing here is a finding of any person’s guilt; the criminal charges referenced are unadjudicated and every defendant is presumed innocent. Sources are linked so readers can check the record. · Home · Map · The law · Bodycam