Self storage units

[Ed Pawlowski]

AARP magazine has an article about self storage units. I guess as a society we like out junk and are willing to pay to keep it. The US has

90% of the storage places in the world.

One in 10 household rent space. Total of 1.9 billion sq. ft.

Average rental is 15.8 months

Six of 10 boomers visit the storage unit one a month

In a recent year. 1550,000 units were auctioned off for non payment and abandoned.

As a society I guess we put a lot of effort into keeping crap. I would never keep that much and when we moved about 2 1/2 years ago made many grips to Salvation Army. even after moving, I still got rid of stuff.

[Anonymous]

Ever watch the cable TV show "Storage Wars" ? It is amazing how much valuable stuff people abandon to later be auctioned off.

Lots of junk too ;-)

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yes, I'd like to spend a day in a unit with Brandi.

I guess there is money in the abandoned stuff if you know where to sell it.

[hubops]

We filled a 10 x 10 - in a climate-controlled warehouse - when we were having the basement gutted and re-done. We donated a lot of stuff before renting it and some more afterwards. I was very pleased to see no sign of bugs or vermin after almost a year in storage. We didn't want a U-store-It delivered to the driveway over the winter - snow drifts would have been a problem. It was ~ $ 120. per month so I can't imagine people paying that to store junk for a long time ! John T.

[micky]

Was this meant to be 1,550,000 or 155,000 or what?

Copy to a friend who managed a ministorage for maybe 20 years.

[krw]

Seems like a good way to get rid of junk/waste. Put it in a storage unit and stop paying.

[krw]

I used one when we moved. We wanted to de-junkify the house to sell it. I rented a storage unit and put everything that wasn't absolutely needed (including my tools) for the few months our house was on the market. I had a new job 70mi away and was commuting on weekends so took a pickup load a week to the new place.

[Ed Pawlowski]

155,000

[micky]

Some places lock people out if they don't pay their rent, and if they still don't pay, they sell their stuff. My impression is that almost all places do that, but my friend and her uncle who owned 3 of them, hundreds of units each, never did that. (She managed one, he managed another, and by the time I met them, he'd sold the third, although it's still where it was.)

When someone wasn't paying his rent, eventually she, or he at the other location, would call and tell him to get everything out and that would be the end of it. And I'd say that was one big reason she never had a fight or even an argument with any of the customers in 20 years. She's

5' or 5'2".

But people did abandon things and she had a regular and a asubstitute if the first guy was busy that she'd call and he'd clean everything out. If she saw something I might want, she called me. One time there were six nice good-condition 2-drawer file cabinets. I screwed two of them together to make a 4-drawer cabinet. No truck but I was able to put 4 of them in the back and front seats of my convertible, or maybe it was 6 in two trips.

A couple times she had someone living in his locker, but she would tell him he had to go.

[Ed Pawlowski]

When we moved I used Pods. Rented the first one when the house went on the market and made lots of trips to Salvation Army store.

[rbowman]

I had a storage unit a long time ago. I built an 8' rowing dingy in my apartment one particularly rainy spring. After humping it down from the second floor I decided ground level storage would be preferable.

I have thought about renting one recently for a Harley rebuild. I don't have a garage and a dry place where I could leave my tools laying around and lock the door on my way out would be good.

[krw]

It really wasn't so much about moving the stuff as staging the move. We hadn't sold the old house so all the "stuff" went into the storage unit. Then when we bought the new, I moved a truckload from the storage unit each weekend. My wife moved six months later and we had everything ells moved professionally.

[gfretwell]

I rented a Pod when we remodeled the kitchen and living room and I ended up throwing almost all of it away. It is amazing when you actually look at the stuff you save, how much is really trash.

[gfretwell]

I moved to Florida in a Firebird and a van with a Uhaul for my tools. My ex still has a house full of my junk. Her second hubby came with all of his junk and her parents died leaving all of their junk. The last time I was up there she just had was just little paths between piles of junk. I showed her how to work EBay but she can't part with anything. Ebay is my way of thinning the junk. If I can get 99 cents it is better than nothing and I usually make a little on the shipping. (Ebay lists the retail cost and you get a discount). That is my contribution to recycling ;-)

[Ed Pawlowski]

It was staging for us too, but it cut out the middle move. I paid for a few months rent on the Pod before it was finally moved south. Filled a

20' one and later a second.

Not sure how much I saved as opposed to just having a mover but it was convenient is some respects. When they were delivered here, I paid $200 to have a few guys unload them and put everything where it belonged. No appliances were moved.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Oh, forgot that. Had a dumpster for a week and filled that first. 40 years of accumulation

[micky]

Tnx

[gfretwell]

That is what my ex needs, a 30 yard construction dumpster.

[angelica...]

We're remodeling the kitchen. I wish I could take the opportunity to throw away a bunch of things we never use, but my husband loves "stuff".

I suppose I could move those things to his workshop...

Cindy Hamilton

[Larry]

Next kitchen remodel, I'm going to do the entire thing with Whirlpool's Gladiator Garage Works cabinets.