Storage Tips to Make Storing Your Stuff Safer and Easier

Surviving Storage

The unexpected move. The home remodel. The over-crowded closet. We've all faced these things. Sometimes, a good house cleaning and a trip or a phone call to a local charity will solve the problem. Sometimes it won't. Here are some tips to survive the process of putting things in storage.

Fearless Inventory

First, take an inventory of your stuff. Think about these two things as you do; is this something I am ever really going to use (fit in, enjoy or need) again, and am I willing to pay to keep it?

Imagine that every item is going to cost you somewhere between fifty cents and a dollar a month to keep. And imagine that you aren't going to have it in storage for just a month or two, because that's not usually the case once you commit to renting a storage space, or devoting a portion of your home to storage. Generally speaking, once something goes into storage, it stays there for a while. Sometimes it stays there for a very long while.

Units and Containers

Next, know your options. What kind of storage space do you have available? How much would it cost to rent a space, whether it be a pod or container that is brought to your property, or a space in a storage facility? Can you afford to rent a space that is temperature controlled, and do the items you wish to store warrant that kind of expense?

There are many kinds of storage facilities. Some are multi-level; you'll be lugging that china hutch and king size mattress into an elevator or up flights of stairs unless you can get a ground-floor unit. Some are pre-fabricated storage units. These may or may not be insulated, and may or may not be rodent and insect proof. Generally speaking, the older pre-fabricated units might be weather-proof, but they are less likely to be mouse and bug proof, unless they have been sealed after installation.

Containers, whether the newer style of deliverable pod or the sea-land cargo containers (which can be delivered to a site or used in a storage facility) are air-tight, waterproof, and impervious to unwelcome visitors.