Storage Units?

[Ultralight]

Hey all! I am fascinated by the storage unit industry.

And... confession: I once rented a storage unit for 3 months in the summer of 2008. What did I put in there?

Nothing.

My friend/neighbor told me to just store my stuff at her apartment, which was right next door. But I had already paid for the storage unit.

Then within a couple weeks a sublet in the complex opened so I moved into that place and then again into the place I originally signed the lease for.

Anyway, here is an article I found interesting:

http://time.com/money/4468345/storage-unit-cost-high/?xid=frommoney_soc_socialflow_facebook_money


Anyone else have experiences with the storage unit industry?

[iris lilies]

Our lily society rents a storage unt and that is good use of money. It costs $665 per year. It is a good unit for us because it is tall, and someone years ago outfitted it with shelves and a ladder. We can drive right up to it. That is important because we fill up truck beds once or twice a year.

We are talking about mergng with another plant society that does not rent a storage place, members of that group store the stuff. I have already declared that I will not store crap for the lily society, although secretly I am resigned to store I will store backdrops used in design because I want design competition to continue.

[ctg492]

A few times. All were and still are justified. All were between moves. Kept every item we put in there after removing. One time it was so sad as it seemed like everything we had was inside that unit(2). During each of those times we had already gotten rid of items that we knew we would not want to store.

I hope we never do that again. It is hard work. Kinda like chopping wood to heat. You chop, stack, carry to burner, then clean.

[iris lilies]

The various hobby groups I belong to always wrestle with where to store the stuff. Storage units can be good for this, assuming that people store only the things that they really need for the functioning of the hobby group.

For our dog society, boxes of records were stored with multiple members. Many disappeared. I have one in my 3rd floor storage room that I havent touched in 15 years.

Someone in the lily society iust called me last week because she "picked up 4 boxes of the old traveling library, what do you [i.e. Me, the President] want done with it." Thanks but no thanks, I deliberately did not chase down that library years ago when someone left the group with it because I dont care about it, no one wants it. Ugh. Now I have to address it.

and our neighborhood archives, Oy bey. Oy!!! I cant even befin to dexribe the mess of boxes, papers, expectations, storage challanges, etc that comes with this volunteer job.i repeat OY! vEY!

[Zoe Girl]

A few times. All were and still are justified. All were between moves. Kept every item we put in there after removing. One time it was so sad as it seemed like everything we had was inside that unit(2). During each of those times we had already gotten rid of items that we knew we would not want to store.

I hope we never do that again. It is hard work. Kinda like chopping wood to heat. You chop, stack, carry to burner, then clean.

I have used storage units a couple times that way. During a massive down size I needed more time to process everything but needed to move. I did that in another move and both times 2-3 months of a storage unit really reduced my stress level. I didn't use it to collect things, but if I did something awesome like go on a 3 month retreat and go without an apartment during that time I would totally use one again.

[mschrisgo2]

Eleven years ago I had 2 storage units for about 8 months in total. I moved out of, and sold, a 1600 sq ft house. I put what I thought I would want/need into a 10 x12 and a 4 x10, both stacked floor to ceiling. When I got into a new place, I moved furniture and things out to use, gave some stuff to my daughter, and to her best friend. emptying the 10 x 12 completely. At 7 months, I had 10 boxes of mostly misc. household stuff and small furniture left in the smaller unit. I put ads on craigslist and sold every bit of it- which totally covered what I had paid in storage fees for the 8 months.

In my case, using the storage then bought me time- time to decide where I was going and what I wanted, and time to sell the rest.

I currently have storage again, an 8 x 10, because that's all they had available. There is plenty of walking in and around space. I moved into a sweet little place of just about 400 sq ft this past summer and have been busy renovating. I have a water tight-shed on site, but it still has building materials in it. As soon as I get it emptied, I can bring my [mostly] boxes of quilting fabrics from the other storage, sell the large desk and matching hutch and bookcases, and recoup what I've paid in storage fees for 4 or 5 months. Again, using the storage has provided space and ease in a transition.

Lesson: Storage can be very useful, and does not have to be a money-suck.

[iris lilies]

Eleven years ago I had 2 storage units for about 8 months in total. I moved out of, and sold, a 1600 sq ft house. I put what I thought I would want/need into a 10 x12 and a 4 x10, both stacked floor to ceiling. When I got into a new place, I moved furniture and things out to use, gave some stuff to my daughter, and to her best friend. emptying the 10 x 12 completely. At 7 months, I had 10 boxes of mostly misc. household stuff and small furniture left in the smaller unit. I put ads on craigslist and sold every bit of it- which totally covered what I had paid in storage fees for the 8 months.

In my case, using the storage then bought me time- time to decide where I was going and what I wanted, and time to sell the rest.

I currently have storage again, an 8 x 10, because that's all they had available. There is plenty of walking in and around space. I moved into a sweet little place of just about 400 sq ft this past summer and have been busy renovating. I have a water tight-shed on site, but it still has building materials in it. As soon as I get it emptied, I can bring my [mostly] boxes of quilting fabrics from the other storage, sell the large desk and matching hutch and bookcases, and recoup what I've paid in storage fees for 4 or 5 months. Again, using the storage has provided space and ease in a transition.

Lesson: Storage can be very useful, and does not have to be a money-suck.

that strategy is brilliant! good for you!

[ctg492]

Seems like everyone uses storage units for the best reasons here. I do feel so sorry when the storage unit places have the liquidation sales. Driving by you can see all the unclaimed or rather no payment units' contents up for sale. Sad because many of them look like everything someone had and had to get out of town so to say, then maybe could not afford the unit? I am sure there is a story behind each.

[bae]

I am presently dealing with my mother-in-law's 4000+ sq. ft. home, which I have inherited, which is worth about $650k.

A cousin is living in it. His *mother's* stuff is still cluttering up the place. She lived there too. She died 10 years ago, he has had plenty of time to deal with it...

I have told him, come this next April, it all goes into storage, and the charges go to his 15% share of the estate.


i think this why my MIL picked me to be in charge. No mercy...

[CathyA]

My DH and his siblings wouldn't deal with all the crap in my MIL's house when she died and they put it in a storage unit. No one would deal with it, but DH was paying for it. $12,000 later, I threw a fit and they finally cleaned it out. MIL would have been very sad if she'd known we had paid so much to store a bunch of junk. Really made me angry since we could have used the money for important things. Unless it's short-term, seems like if people store stuff it means they have too much stuff.
(And what irked me even more was that we all own her old house equally......which BIL is living in and had a totally empty basement, but wouldn't store the stuff there). Okay.......I'll stop.

[Zoe Girl]

Wow, how large was that storage Cathy? I get small units but spend $100-150 a month in the expensive city.

[CathyA]

It was 100 a month for 10 years. It was probably something like 10' x 10'.

[Zoe Girl]

Yeah 10 years would do that!

[iris lilies]

Yeah 10 years would do that!
My friend once intercepted a bill from a storage shed company. Her husband had taken out a storage unit and ahemdisnt know it. She was curious as heck to know what he was storing, but it was just the same things that filled up their basement to the maximum, old computer parts he salvages from work..

on a brighter on the side of storage unit companies, our lily society failed to pay our bill for a year. The storage company carried us for one year. This was part of administrative duties that were blown off by previous officers. Now,they are all either dead or largely incapacitated and a few of us are picking up the pieces.

[Ultralight]

One time it was so sad as it seemed like everything we had was inside that unit(2).

Why was it sad?

[Ultralight]

I am presently dealing with my mother-in-law's 4000+ sq. ft. home, which I have inherited, which is worth about $650k.

A cousin is living in it. His *mother's* stuff is still cluttering up the place. She lived there too. She died 10 years ago, he has had plenty of time to deal with it...

I have told him, come this next April, it all goes into storage, and the charges go to his 15% share of the estate.


i think this why my MIL picked me to be in charge. No mercy...

Keep me posted on how this pans out. Do you expect a crisis come April?

[Miss Cellane]

When I got the chance to go to London for 10 months, I put everything I owned in a storage unit. There was a discount for paying the 10 months in advance, so I think I paid $65/month. If I had sold everything, it would have cost more than the storage fee to replace it all, as most of my stuff was, and still is, second-hand, and wouldn't bring in very much.

And I got to go to London for 10 months! And get paid to do so! So it was well worth it to me.

After we cleared out my parents' home, there were a few large furniture items no one had room for, and the rest of the siblings decided to rent a storage unit for them. I was all for selling them--Goodwill wouldn't take them (and, boy, did I catch flack for even letting the Goodwill folks look at them), but everyone else wants to keep them. So 4 of the siblings are spending I don't know how much to rent the storage space.

However, some of the stuff in there is for one brother who is in the military. He would like this stuff, but has been stationed abroad for the past 10 years. When he gets back to the US, he'll take it, and my guess is that the rest will have to find homes/be donated at that time. Things like my mother's hope chest that is intended for his daughter--sentimental stuff.

And I've just heard that more stuff is going in there, as a relative recently died and there's some furniture that was offered to our side of the family and my siblings want to take it, even though none of us has room for it.

At least I have nothing in the storage unit and am not paying for it.

[jp1]

This was part of administrative duties that were blown off by previous officers. Now,they are all either dead or largely incapacitated...

Violence seems like an extreme reaction to their dereliction of duty!

[Float On]

We had a 10x10 unit for about 2 years maybe 12 years ago 3 miles from our place. We used it for our business. Our studio was 20x20 when we built it and with two glass tanks, two kilns, one huge glory hole, grinding equip, raw supplies, product, shipping supplies, show display etc. We felt like we were spending 10 hours a week just moving things to get to things. At about the year and a half into renting the unit I showed the savings on paper if we just added a 10x20 room to the studio. Wow. What a difference that made. I had a wonderful packing station, well organized. And show supplies were easy to get to and stayed organized, and then the shelves....oh the shelves. Finished product had a place to go for orders and shows. Now that we don't have the business I still love those shelves. It will be a big selling point if we ever sell.

[catherine]

I have never used a storage unit, but then again, I have a two-car garage that has served as our storage unit. I can see myself putting some things in storage if I ever downside considerably--mainly as protection against fear that I would get rid of something I really want--the same way mschrisgo did... but I hope I never do, because it does seem like a big waste of money unless you're using it for transition. My son did that when he was moving from place to place over the last two years.

So many times I have put things in boxes and stuck them in the garage and then I come across them--years later--and I can't even remember what was in them. That's a sign that I should have just dumped them. I could see myself putting stuff in a storage unit and then just never, ever thinking about what's there.

[iris lilies]

Violence seems like an extreme reaction to their dereliction of duty!
Hahaha, well. Their deaths and incapacitation had nothing to do with me!

[ToomuchStuff]

Violence seems like an extreme reaction to their dereliction of duty!


Evil, maniacal laughter.:laff:

I was looking for a place to live and had one large item that I needed to store, so I rented a storage shed (couldn't store stuff with my parents, even living there). I was working full time and going to school when a relative was diagnosed and we did the hospice thing. My sleep went down and stress went up. When everything was said and done, I had a house worth's of furniture, and moved it into the unit. In the thirty days from the time I inherited it, I had a friend who rented a place and asked to let me store it at there (think they were wanting a roommate), then they got a roommate the next week, so I needed to move it again, and I found, moved in and bought my house. I never again rented a unit and I also learned how worthless it is trying to get family to help you move. My total storage unit time was probably 8 months and they really liked me because I was the only one who was never late.

I believe based on my knowledge that most people renting, do things like store junk, or forget things are in there and keep buying or buy a replacement rather then go dig it out of storage. When a friend got divorced, he moved a lot of the stuff into a storage unit since it was his ex's kids, and when they went through it years later, he realized how stupid that was (cheap, throwaway plastic swimming pool that probably cost 2x what a nice one would have, clothes they outgrew, etc).

On the other hand, we have a couple of customers (father and son) that sold their storage units, recently, for close to $100,000,000.

[Float On]

I do like to watch that Storage Wars show. Pretty amazing what people will pay for a unit that may be a gold-mine or a trash-heap.