7 Great tips for using Self Storage
Over the years most of us have been the tenant of a storage unit, because sometimes you just need more space. There’s lots of reasons to rent one, but there’s also lots of tips and tricks to pick up along the way. Here’s a few things we’ve learned in our adventures of paid storage, all of which we wish we would have known before hand …
1. Insurance: Most Storage facilities offer this at a great rate, StoreRight Self Storage offers Bader Insurance and you can get $2000.00 in coverage for only $9.00 a month, $3000.00 for $13.00 a month and $5000.00 for only $21.00 a month.(The rule of thumb is that if it’s worth storing its worth insuring).
1. Pallets, Pallets, and Pallets: Keeping your items off the floor is almost essential. It might sound silly, but before renting your unit, there’s no way to promise that the melting snow won’t come under the door, or the adjacent unit won’t have a spill that soaks its way into your heirloom sofa.
2. Wrap What You Can: Each time we use a storage unit, we wrap what we can in industrial plastic wrap. That way, we know that things are sealed up tight and it won’t collect dust or creepy crawlies while it’s doing time. Its also great for wrapping dressers to keep the drawers in place, anything that opens should be wrapped as it makes it much easier to move. Industrial plastic wrap along with all your packing needs can be purchased at StoreRight Self Storage.
3. Label, Label, Label: Even though you know exactly what you’re putting in your storage unit at the time you open it, that doesn’t mean in 6 months when you need back in it that you won’t be digging for ages and opening random boxes until you find what you’re after. Label everything on every side of the box. The hidden, the obvious, and you can even go as far as to make a checklist that hangs inside the door telling you where something might be (back right corner under the desk = cameras to sell on eBay).
4. Plan for Temperature Changes: Although this might not be an issue in some parts of the country, there are a few things that don’t like the cold or the heat and should either be double wrapped or well insulated or not stored at all. Electronics, vinyl records, old photos (if humid), things of that nature all come out a little less awesome when not stored properly. If you rent a non-climate controlled unit be sure to buy a damp rid / damp check to put in the front of the unit to absorb any moisture and replace every 30 days. This product is also available at StoreRight Self Storage.
5. Rainy Season, Carry Sand: Most outdoor storage units are built so water drains away from doors and to one central location. …. in theory. Carry cat litter, sand or even spare sheets of plywood to help you unload or access your items.
6. Protect the Space: While we’re concerned about protecting what we put in the unit, protecting the unit itself is also important — there can be heavy fines for scarring the unit during your tenancy. If you rent one to use for, say, your freelance furniture flipping or restoration business, make sure to plastic off the walls and floors to catch glue drips and sprays (not that we’ve ever accidentally spray painted the inside wall pink before…. oops).
7. Bust out Your Tetris Skills: Even the smallest storage unit can hold a great deal, just make sure you use the space wisely which means packing things all the way to the ceiling. Bringing in plywood to lay across several boxes can help stabilize layers as your stacking it up, up and up! It will take the pressure off the tops of your boxes and help keep things safe.
As the old adage goes “You get what you pay for”, is relevant when choosing a storage facility. Some places are a little more expensive than others and you need to weigh the pros and cons of each facility and how it meets your needs.
How important is the location for you?
Prime locations are known for close proximity, easy access and convenience in a desirable neighborhood. Storage facilities in a prime location, will more often than not, cost a little more money for the unit because it is in a high demand area.
Is a clean, bug and pest control facility important to you?
Some storage facilities have a regular maintenance person who maintains the property and buildings. They also may have a regular schedule for pest and bug control prevention. This is usually on a monthly basis. Some facilities do not have a maintenance person on a regular basis and some do not do routine bug and pest control.
Is Security and Accessibility important to you?
Some facilities have gated access, coded building access and 24/7 video monitoring. Some facilities do not.
Is the cost to begin renting a unit important to you?
All facilities have their own lease requirements and rules and regulations. You should read through the lease carefully before signing. Some facilities require a deposit, along with the first month’s rent, and others do not have any deposit. Some facilities make you prepay for the following month while others do not and some facilities have the billing on the first of every month and some facilities bill by the monthly anniversary.
Are strict lock and insurance requirements important to you?
Some facilities have lock requirements and insurance requirements.
Most facilities will let you bring in your own locks, but some require that you buy their locks and others may give you a lock to use.
Storage facilities also have different rules and regulations regarding insurance. They do not insure your belongings and some will let you use your home owners insurance, others will require you to buy their insurance, and some will let you rent at your own risk.
Write down what is important to you. Call around to different facilities in your area and ask your important questions. Once you find out what facilities in your area offer what fits your needs, go take a look at the facility and meet the management. In the end, it all comes down to what is most important to you.
Storage Auctions:
In the United States, self storage facilities may hold storage auctions or lien sales to vacate a non-paying tenants according to their enforcement rights that are outlined within the lien law of each jurisdiction. Facility owners are required to give public notice of the sale or auction in a printed periodical in most states, while other states are considering allowing public notice of sales to be done in the internet. However, a tenant in a lien sale has the right to pay their outstanding bill until the moment the auction begins and thus reclaim their items; those units would be removed from the auction (which, in some cases, may result in the entire auction being cancelled).
Auction/Sales are open to the public, with most bidders buying for the purpose of reselling for profit. Usually the terms for sales are cash only. Once the auction for the units starts, the lock will be removed, the door to the unit is opened and potential bidders are allowed to view the contents only by looking in from the doorway; they may not step inside, touch, or remove any of the contents prior to the auction. The space is usually sold “as is”. The purchaser of the unit receives everything in it (treasure and trash) and is responsible for removing the contents within a giving time frame, usually a day or two, though a facility may allow a purchaser to subsequently rent the unit, the facility may also charge a cleaning deposit to be refunded once the unit is cleaned and made available to the facility. In some jurisdiction, the storage facility may confiscate controlled items (such as firearms) if they are immediately visible.
In the fall of 2010 two new television programs featuring storage auctions, Storage Wars and Storage Hunters were released. The popularity led to additional shows such as storage Hunters, Storage Wars Texas, Storage Wars New York which helped increase the visibility and interest of storage auctions.
I’m Julie, The one who will answer the phone will cheer and determination… in a matter of a year I have gone from knowing nothing about self storage to managing a 1000 unit facility. … and that count does not include parking. I am excited, ready and like I said determined. I was trained by one of the best and I am employed by the TOP storage company!!! I love my job and look forward to each day as an adventure!!! This is a very unique facility , we have a drive thru climate control as well as a boat house! I am a quick learner with a great support system. The sky is the limit!!
If you’re anything like me, you wake up one morning and realize that there is barely any room to breath in your house.Don’t know if the nick-knacks are breeding after lights out or the neighbor has built a cloning machine that he’s testing on your stuff but one thing is clear: something has to give or you’ll soon be living on the front lawn.
First step is take a long hard look at your “stuff”. The size 2 bell-bottom jeans that were your favorite in high school, are they ever coming back in style? And if they do, are you ever going to get into a size 2 again? Really look at what you have and decide what needs to be in your home vs what you can sell, store, donate or toss. Just because you’ve had something since the Reagan Administration doesn’t mean you need to keep it. Try to be as objective as possible here. Paying $75.00 a month to store nursery room furniture for a baby you plan to have in 5 years could cost you over $4000.00! But by the same token if that crib is something that Great-grandpa made by hand for Grandpa, well, that’s another story all together.
Once you have a pretty good handle on what you’d like to store, check storeright.com’s home page. There is a Space Estimator tab to help you decide what size unit you will need and StoreRight Brooksville’s previous blog will help you decide if you need a climate controlled or standard unit. Now it’s time to do your homework.
What features do you need? Jeff Foxworthy got a lot of laughs with “If directions to your place include turn off the paved road” but you are likely to lose your sense of humor quickly if you are bouncing down 5 miles of dirt road with a car load of breakables.
Price is, of course, a major consideration but also look at location, security, access, etc. Do you need outside storage for a boat or rv also? Visit the facilities, are they clean and well maintained? Really think about what features are important to you before making your final decision.
Here at StoreRight in Brooksville, you’ll find that we are conveniently located and that every effort is made to keep the grounds and common areas clean and attractively landscaped. We want your experience here to be a very pleasant one,
When you think about storage all that comes to mind is that it’s a place to keep your items that you can’t store at your home. Once you put your items in storage it’s out of sight out of mind. You make your payment every month and go on with the bigger things in your life. Even as an employee of a storage facility I don’t always think about how important storage can be, that is until my 4 year old starts asking questions.
My family and I live on-site at the facility I work at. My kids ask questions all the time like many curious children do. My 4 year old asked me why people leave their homes at our house, talking about the RV’s parked in our outside parking area. As he’s asking this question I can see the wheels turning and another question is about to follow. Before I can answer the first question he asks if the people live in there because he doesn’t see people going in or out of them. I then explain to him that the people don’t live in these “houses” right now, they have regular houses and they do not have the space to park them in their driveways. I explain to him that when people go camping or on vacation they take these mobile houses with them to live in instead of staying in hotels. For a 4 year old he is fascinated by this phenomenon and of course starts asking all the “why” questions.
One of my jobs in the mom department is to educate my children, so when they have questions I try my best to answer all of them, even the millions of why questions. One of the best feelings is when you answer the questions your children have and you too learn more about your job or life through your children. My 4 year old leads on with other questions about the units and why do people need to put their stuff in them. I explain to him that people need units to keep their stuff safe while moving from one house to another or just need extra space to store the items they don’t use everyday. I have a storage unit and so I took him to our unit to show him some of the items we keep in our unit. He was in awe when he saw the Christmas decorations and some of the keep sake stuff I had in their from when he was a baby.
In conclusion of this whole lesson he finally tells me that if we didn’t run a storage place then people wouldn’t be able to keep everything they needed and they wouldn’t be able to go on vacation. (His exact words!) I laughed to myself thinking about how the simplicity and complexity of his mind was working at the same time to understand that concept and I was one happy momma that he understood the basic reasoning for storage. It’s funny how as adults we go through life just accepting what we see or what we are told, we don’t question for further explanation or knowledge. The more questions my 4 year old asked the more appreciation I had for the small things in life such as storage and all the aspects of the storage business. It’s truly amazing how much we can learn from a 4 year old while teaching them at the same time.
Believe it or not, by my 4 year olds curiosity in my job I have learned to pay more attention in the storage world and become a better employee. I have also started looking at the reasons (big & small) of why storage is so important to everybody, which helps our facility have the best customer service in our area. So next time you feel annoyed by all the “why” questions from a child just remember you will always learn something new from their questions and their view of the situation and it will help you appreciate everything in life a little more.
