Learn Me: Storage Unit

Landlord sold the house, time to move in with the grandparents....yay.

I need to store some furniture/garage stuff until we find a new place to live. Hopefully less than 3 months. Anyone have suggestions on getting a good deal on a storage unit?

These places are not the most technically-advanced, definitely call and speak to someone vs trying to do it all online. It'll give you a feel for the character of the proprietor - there's enough competition out there that if someone's unpleasant to deal with, it's much better to just move on.

Go for larger than you think you'll need. Also, their "10x10" or whatever are rarely exact (or even close). And if you're worried about door size (for, say, storing a tire trailer), don't trust them to know the dimensions, or for those dimensions to have any relation to the size of the unit.

If you don't have it already, get some cheap shelving and put that up along the sides first thing. Boxes and stuff go on there; it's space efficient, gets them off the ground and out from under foot. Especially with the garage bits, try and put as much stuff as possible in boxes vs loose piles of crap. HD has cheap-ish but quality moving boxes, but both Lowes/HD have cheap plastic bins that might be better for bulky/oily garage stuff.

Check with your renter's insurance to see if they'll cover the stuff in the storage unit.

Get it close to enough to drive to reasonably.

Mine is 2.5hrs away and I was just there Sunday after nearly 4 years away.....

Get renter's insurance.

I just got one in similar circumstances (1-3 month storage period), and am pretty happy with where I am. I did a fair amount of "research" before deciding on it.

1: Do you need drive up access (yes, you do)? It would have been an absolute pain in the posterior if we couldn't back the Uhaul directly to it. A lot of them say that you can drive right up into it, but in reality there are so many restrictions that you can't.
2: Call and talk to them.
3: Read through the fine print, very carefully. That $1 first months rent at Public Storage? Yeah, that is $1 for the rest of the month. So if you sign on June 1, you get until June 30 for $1. If you sign on May 29, you get 3 days for $1. Metro Storage, where I am, it is first month free, and that month is 30 days.
4: Most are going to require insurance. It is $9 for me through them, and I probably will have that removed next month since between my renters insurance, fiance's renters insurance, and both our parents homeowners insurance I am sure that it is covered. But you have to have proof of that when you sign.
5: Watch out for the fees. I had a $20 signing/admin fee. Which if I recall correctly, was about $20 cheaper than another storage facility.

If I could have, I would have gone with an indepenedent place. Make sure it is convenient to where you live/will live. Add up the value of everything in there, and ask yourself what it is worth. Our stuff is worth about $1500 total. I'm ok with pitching all of it if need be, but would rather not. Make sure that you aren't paying $100 a month to store $500 worth of goods. It would probably be better to toss it or sell it, and then buy when you're ready.

EDIT: How long do you have before you need this? The place that I went with, I reserved a 10x20 for $180 a month. I got there, he said "Lets take a look at the 10x15--I don't think you need the big one" and he saved me $30 a month. Two weeks later, I looked online and the 10x20 was $100 a month. So it is a crapshoot on the pricing, but if you can watch it for 1-2 weeks I would do that.

Have a garage sale and get rid of everything you don't need first, not after you move to your new place. Because of my wife, we have rented good sized storage units to store stuff that wasn't worth the storage fee.

is there a spot of land, or driveway/parking pad, where you could have a sea crate dropped?

They're a much smaller headache and you can resell it for basically everything except transport cost when you're done with it.

All of this ^^^

Do not store anything soft like cardboard boxes, rugs, seat's, cloths in a trash bag..... with in four inches of the floor. Why? When the jackass in the next unit over puts the wash machine with water still inside the machine in storage the water will leak out and pass under the wall. Just saying.

I'd go further and say nothing on the floor at all. Condensation and concrete sweating will destroy the bottom of a cardboard box faster than you think, if the bugs and rodents stay out. Find some pallets for everything, and if you are going to still be there in the fall than mouse poison as well.

If you are just going to load it up and unload once then you can get by with smaller and stack but if you are going to be retrieving individual things from the unit while you use it than you need bigger and shelving.

Excellent tips everyone. After I posted I thought to myself, why am I wasting everyone's time with a BS question like this .Turns out you were a lot of help!

I hear you on the paying $100 a month to store $500 of stuff. I'm selling my couches, washer/dryer (which I really like), and maybe my bedroom furniture. The rest is pretty much a table, 2 big TVs, ALL my garage equip/tools and then kitchen equipment. It's somewhat high level stuff but I don't have any other option and can't sell it. The house we tried to buy is pending to a cash investor so we are back to square one on the house search.

Question: Do we need climate controlled? I'm thinking yes because of the electronics, mattress and clothing in this hot FL heat. Also, you guys seem pretty adamant for insurance. We don't currently have insurance...should we get some for the storage unit?

We need to be out of this place by 6/10 and I HOPE this doesn't turn into a 5 month ordeal. We've been trying to buy a house on and off for 2.5 FREAKING years now and I'm too picky and the market is too hot. Hopefully something pops up ASAP.

Enyar wrote: Excellent tips everyone. After I posted I thought to myself, why am I wasting everyone's time with a BS question like this .Turns out you were a lot of help! I hear you on the paying $100 a month to store $500 of stuff. I'm selling my couches, washer/dryer (which I really like), and maybe my bedroom furniture. The rest is pretty much a table, 2 big TVs, ALL my garage equip/tools and then kitchen equipment. It's somewhat high level stuff but I don't have any other option and can't sell it. The house we tried to buy is pending to a cash investor so we are back to square one on the house search. Question: Do we need climate controlled? I'm thinking yes because of the electronics, mattress and clothing in this hot FL heat. Also, you guys seem pretty adamant for insurance. We don't currently have insurance...should we get some for the storage unit? We need to be out of this place by 6/10 and I HOPE this doesn't turn into a 5 month ordeal. We've been trying to buy a house on and off for 2.5 FREAKING years now and I'm too picky and the market is too hot. Hopefully something pops up ASAP.

Is there anything that would be a huge pain in the ass to move? If so, I'd value ease of access to the unit more important than climate control. But in pretty much every situation I would take climate control if it is convenient and not 2x the price.

The biggest items would be the bedroom furniture which isn't too bad and the washer/dryer combo if I tried to keep it. Things like my boats and patio furniture (big teak table) are going to a friends house. The washer dryer I could probably sell for $100-200 more than what I paid for it and then just search for another on craigslist once I need one (if I even need one at whatever house I buy). That being said, I bought that washer dryer and dragged it down 3 flights of apartment stairs when I bought it so moving it out of a single story home will be a breeze compared to then.