Storage Units

[Voldemort]

They seem to be popping up wherever there's an empty building or space to drop a dozen containers.

Who's using them? Surely the monthly charge is just God reinforcing the 'you have too much crap' message with an invoice.

Are they all cannabis farms or something else nefarious or do too many people need somewhere to keep their jet ski collection?

[condor]

My brother and I have been using a storage container at £200/month since May. Our father died in April and our step-mother insisted that we had to remove all his belongings within a month. They lived approx 5 hours away from both of us - hence the need to transport his belongings to a storage container near to one of us. We can hopefully give it up next month as we've nearly managed to clear it.

[Spare tyre]

We used one whilst between houses, works well but it was hard work getting round to emptying it.

The prices start very reasonable and they convince you that you won’t need it long, before you know it the prices are into the next tier and a small room is costing you a good chunk of your mortgage payment!

My sister had one when she moved in 2012 and she still has it, she’s a bit lazy so I can’t imagine what it’s costing her now


Good service if you are disciplined, only trouble we had with ours was lack of trolleys, when we started going (it was newly opened) there were 100s of them, when we moved out there were non to spare. People were loading them up and then leaving the stuff on them in their locked unit.

In Southampton we had to visit a few sites to find availability

[alorotom]

I've got a garage rental and a storage unit ... The garage is peanuts (it's council and £8.34p/wk)

The storage unit is c.£100/MTH and 6x4x3m so a decent size.

Mostly full of stuff I don't want at the house or the Mrs doesn't know about lol

[NDA]

condor said:

My brother and I have been using a storage container at £200/month since May. Our father died in April and our step-mother insisted that we had to remove all his belongings within a month. They lived approx 5 hours away from both of us - hence the need to transport his belongings to a storage container near to one of us. We can hopefully give it up next month as we've nearly managed to clear it.

Nice.

At least she didn't dump the lot or sell it off - which happened to a friend of mine. Step mothers can be incredibly thoughtless and/or cruel.

Sorry to hear about your dad.....

[Spare tyre]

Seen a few arguments happening there, usually the units with 2 or 3 padlocks on

I guess that is a divorce or similar situation

It’s a bit like a nhs hospital, you get to see all walks of life, from the best to the worst

[Mr Pointy]

They key is to negotiate a six month deal & at the end of that move to another one, taking advantage of the introductory offers they run. There are four operators round here so it's a couple of years before you get back to the first one & they've forgotten you were there before.

[spikeyhead]

Used one when I had a business to store excess stock.

If it's for personal stuff, just sell it unless it's for a very short timescale

[devnull]

They are a bit of a license to print money, I had one when I had a one bed flat, and it was largely full of crap - quite angry with myself when I needed to vacate it as there was lots of stuff that I hadn’t touched for a long time.

I did also use one for a month when I moved out of my flat and was living with the missus for a while. I stored the entire contents of it in a unit which was about the same size as the flat!

You often see them spring up quite close to new developments - I am convinced they are a result of new builds having zero storage space in them.

[vikingaero]

We rented one when my Mum & Dad moved house and sold the house & land. The Developer couldn't complete within 3 months due to other building commitments and arranging finance. Then suddenly they said they wanted to complete within 3 weeks which wasn't enough time to properly sort through stuff. They offered a £10k incentive. We rented a unit at £1 per month for the first 3 months and then £90pm for 3 months of full price rental.

Whilst moving stuff in/out I noticed a lot of the ground floor units were rented by start up businesses to hold stock.

[SydneyBridge]

I had one for a few months when i moved. Saw lots of foreign university students, use them for the summer so they dont have to take too much stuff home

[sjg]

Had one for a few months when we were still in a 2 bed flat, baby on the way and wouldn’t be moving to a house until after she arrived. Got a load of the bulky and less needed stuff out of the way and safe and dry (unlike our garage) until we had a house to dump it all in.

I think a lot of their business is people in a similar boat - change of circumstances meaning more stuff than you have room for. The really profitable ones are those who just keep paying month after month rather than deal with it.

[Drawweight]

I had one when I moved from a huge 3 bed flat to a tiny 1 bed while my new build was getting finished.

It took a couple of months to empty it though even after we moved in.

I think it was about £140/month. We could have got cheaper by shopping around but this was the nearest and we knew we'd always be popping into it for bits and pieces.

Worth keeping in mind if you are thinking of renting one.

[Spare tyre]

Drawweight said:

I had one when I moved from a huge 3 bed flat to a tiny 1 bed while my new build was getting finished.

It took a couple of months to empty it though even after we moved in.

I think it was about £140/month. We could have got cheaper by shopping around but this was the nearest and we knew we'd always be popping into it for bits and pieces.

Worth keeping in mind if you are thinking of renting one.

Yes , also if looking make sure it’s 24hr access

Some were office hours 7 days a week

You think that’s ok, but then you essentially limit yourself to the weekend and every other belle nd is there moving their Chinese plastics about

[romeogolf]

I worked for an independent storage place about 7 years ago. Most common uses:

• Moving house and have sold before finding somewhere new; Everything in storage while renting or living with family.
• Students over the summer (especially international students)
• A development of new homes over the road which had little to no storage, even the houses had flat roofs and no lofts, so people moving in had to find somewhere for all the stuff they used to put in the loft.
• Small businesses, especially those who do eBay stuff and sold it from home.
• One business on the edge of going bust sold their warehouse and stuck it all with us for six months.
• Couples moving in together suddenly with two of everything. Putting it in storage until selling it later.
• Garden tools over the winter
• People who previously used council garages but got sick of them being broken into.
• Businesses who worked nationwide and needed deliveries locally to where their jobs were (we would store items in the loading bay for up to 24 hours).

A lot of people thought they'd be there for a month or two and then ended up stuck for much longer. Some customers would pay for the year in advance for a hefty discount and knew that it was long term.

Ours had 24-hour access which was all PIN controlled with alarms on each unit, cameras etc. The padlocks we used were coloured and meant different things;

Green locks were vacant units
Red locks were units where the rent was unpaid and the customer was locked out (so this would be adjacent to their own lock)
Yellow locks were units that needed cleaning
Blue locks were units that were reserved.