DON’T BE GUILTY OF THESE 3 BIGGEST MISTAKES SELF STORAGE RENTERS MAKE

Now, while none of these mistakes are catastrophic, they can cause major inconveniences as well as quite a bit of money in terms of not maximizing your investment.

Thinking Too Little About What They Need
Let’s get the most obvious thing out of the way first. To maximize your investment in a self storage unit, you need to really think about what you require.

You need to talk to us so we can tell you what you need if you’re not sure. We will gladly assist you on some of these important factors you need to consider:

• Space — The very reason you need self-storage space is because you have no more space for the stuff you need to store. So at the very least, be certain of how much space you need and how you can maximize that space.
• Facilities — Aside from keeping the room clean and protected from the elements, we offer a lot of other options regarding facilities and features that you may want to inquire about and avail of.
• Cost — Think about how long you need the self-storage space for, how much more storage space you may need in the future, and what sort of items you need stored. All of these contribute to the total cost of the unit as well as our first two factors: space and facilities.

Those are just among the most important factors, but of course we’ll gladly discuss all the minutiae where necessary!

This seems like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often self-storage renters just want to finish the procedure and get it out of the way. Give due consideration to these important factors; otherwise, you’re either going to spend more than you should or you won’t be maximizing what you can do with the storage space.

Renting and Forgetting
It’s understandable that when most people rent self-storage space, they just stash their stuff in there and forget about it afterwards. The thing is, that’s not how you maximize your storage space. That isn’t thinking in the long term.

You don’t even need to have big plans for your storage space; it’s just that you need to think ahead. Take these two examples:

• Martha needs extra storage space for a home renovation project. She​ rents a nice little self-storage room with sufficient space to stash all the non-essential stuff she needs to get out of the way. But she doesn’t think this through; she stored some items she’ll be needing in the next few days during the renovation. She ends up driving back to the storage space when she needs the items.

  This simple lack of forethought on what items to store can cause a lot of inconvenience. Not only did she have to drive back and forth, she probably also delayed her renovations even by just a little bit. Imagine if she really didn’t think her storage through and she needed to make several trips back and forth and significantly delay the renovation.

• Jim is a sports enthusiast. He rents a small storage space so he can store his seasonal sports equipment. The equipment he’s going to use for the current season, he keeps at home. Jim needs to keep in mind both the state of his sports equipment and how often he needs to go back and perform maintenance on them.

  Different sports gear and equipment would require specific maintenance and care. The condition of the storage unit as well as how often Jim needs to personally go and take care of his sports equipment needs to be taken into account.

Neglecting What Happens in Their Storage Space
So you’ve figured out what you need and you’re going to make sure you don’t just “rent and forget.” Now, you also need to make sure you don’t neglect what happens inside the storage space you just rented.

Just to be clear, nothing happens inside your storage space — and that’s exactly the point. Once you stash your stuff in there, nothing happens. There are no automated cleaning crews to make sure your boxes are properly stacked. No one will personally see to it that your fragile valuables don’t get crushed under heavier stuff. There won’t be anyone to move the boxes out of your way when you come and visit to grab some stuff you need or store more of your belongings in the future.

You need to think about all of this yourself.

• Plan your space — Planning your space goes beyond understanding how much space you need. It’s relatively easy to find out how big you need your storage space to be, after all. Perhaps more importantly, you need to plan your space in the context of what you’re going to store. If you want to store items typically found on your patio or garage — things that typically don’t need to be inside your house — then you wouldn’t require heating or cooling. Otherwise, you should consider how long you’ll be storing your items for.
• Organize for access — Finally, keep organized. Because despite your plans, you might end up going back to your storage space, rummaging through your stuff to get that one item you suddenly thought you needed back home. And you could end up doing this more often than you like. So keep boxes organized and labeled, and make sure the way they’re stacked doesn’t necessitate you wading through a ton of things before you get what you need — keep the back area of your stash relatively easy to get to and free of obstructions.