LIKE the notorious brigantine discovered sailing with no one on board in 1870s America, a woman has dubbed the case of her irreplaceable antique furniture, feared missing, “the Mary Celeste of storage”.
LJ Loch is fearing the worst after the Wagga-based storage company, with whom her items have been with for eight years, has disconnected two phone lines and provided her with no correspondence for close to two years.
Sydney-based Ms Loch put her great-aunt’s treasured antique table and six chairs, which were gifted to the former Wagga woman on her 21st birthday, into Fitzpatrick’s Removals and Storage eight years ago.
They sat alongside an antique sideboard she inherited from a close friend’s grandmother.
While admitting the company was notoriously slow to issue invoices, Ms Loch has exhausted all avenues to contact the company and is desperate for her beloved furniture to be given a new home in a close friend, who has recently made a new home in Wagga.
Ms Loch has phoned two contact numbers listed on previous invoiced relentlessly, but both have been disconnected.
She also contacted Fitzpatricks Real Estate, who have no connection to the storage company of the same name, but admitted they had received similar inquiries.
Ms Loch phoned other storage companies in Wagga in the faint of hope of making headway in the search for her furniture, but all knew nothing of any changes to the company.
“I’m obviously worried they’ve collapsed and they’ve been (selling off) our things without knowing,” Ms Loch said.
“They had all my contact details, though. I’m working on the assumption that if they shut down, they would have gone through the motions of informing their customers.
“It’s like the Mary Celeste of storage.”
An ABN search for the company reveals the entity name, Diabyranla Pty Ltd, active from March 18, 2004 and GST registered from April 16, 2014 operates two business names in Fitzpatricks Removals and Storage and JR Removals.
The ABN for Diabyranla is current, while Fitzpatricks Removals and Storage’s ABN was issued on March 18, 2004 and expired on March 21, 2011. Both business names, however, remain current, while their listed Parry Street address now belongs to a transport company.
