Q. What is it supposed to be on the show? A. "Miami Move and Haul", a moving van rental company. Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A. Somewhere in Miami. Q. When did we see it on the show? A. In Episode 2, of Season 5, "Hello Bandit". Dexter, planning to move out of his house and into a new place (following the death of his wife), goes to rent a moving van. But as luck would have it (Dexter's luck, at least), he notices blood stains inside one of the moving vans. Always facinated with blood (and the mystery of who left it there), Dexter deliberately rents that particular truck. (Later, we see him, with baby Harrison, checking out the blood stains in the back of that van. He checks the last person to rent the truck and learns it was Boyd Fowler. When he establishes that the blood was human, he goes looking for Boyd.) Q. What is it actually in real life? A. An auto shop. Q. Where can I find it in real life? A. This scene was shot at European Auto Shop, 820 E. 3rd St, in Long Beach, CA. That's between Alamitos Ave & Olive Ave, in downtown L.B., just north of the bar where Angel gets into a fight (later in the same episode). And it's near the sting motel where Angel causes a scene.

It's also fairly close to the park where they found the woman's head (in the same episode), and the botanica.


And, of course, it's not far from the Shoreline Village area, where they have filmed countless scenes over the years.




I shot the photos below in October 2010:








Here is an aerial photo of the garage. And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  This one was fairly easy. Visible in the background of this scene was a building with a sign reading "Store N Save". Assuming that this was probably somewhere in Long Beach, I simply Googled for storage in Long Beach and checked StreetView scenes until I found a match.  It didn't take long.

And actually, it could have been even easier, because the real name of the place ("European Auto Shop") is visible on a sign in the scene itself (see the fourth photo from the top). But since I didn't know if that was a real name or a fake one added by the studio, I felt more confident Googling for the storage place, which was clearly an actual business.

(I should add that one of my tipsters, Geoff, emailed me about the location after I had found it. Thanks, Jeff.)