I’m in the process of putting essentially everything I own into one of those self storage units. How likely is it to get broken into?
The unit I’m renting is in a suburban area. It opens to the outside of the building. The building is surrounded by a chain link fence with bobwire on top and has security cameras. I’m using a medium quality padlock.
too many variables to say
I’ve had my belongings in several storage untis throughout the years. The biggest threat I faced was one that had moisture and rodent problems. Never had a break in.
Can’t really say much about your particular situation. If you have doubts, take your stuff some place else.
A friend of mine had her storage unit broken into by persons who apparently did it just to be destructive. They maliciously damaged stuff, and they destroyed her personal artwork. The storage facility assumed no responsibility whatsoever, and of course the artwork was irreplaceable.
Moral: Don’t put anything in there you couldn’t stand to lose.
I had my stuff in a unit here while I was in Ohio for a year. The only thing that happened to it was a whole buncha spiders moved in.
Make sure there is not a downhill slope in front of your door, and I also think having a manager that lives on site is good.
My family stored a lot of stuff over a summer once, and had no problems with breaking in, per se.
However, the owner’s son (who worked there, I think) went in for some reason unknown to us and apparently decided that some of our stuff was disposable (nothing terribly expensive, but stuff like a model boat my dad was working on before we went away, etc.). That was weird. Dunno how you’d watch out for that, exactly.
My family stored a lot of stuff over a summer once, and had no problems with breaking in, per se.
How the heck does that happen?! Firstly, what would he have been doing in there anyway? And secondly, who is he to decide whether what people have decided to store is disposable or not?
I don’t understand how that happened to pasunejen either. The self-storage facilities I used were locked by padlocks owned by the tenants, who had the only keys.
They are probably safer at storing items than at your house because of the multiple security precautions a GOOD storage facility takes. My family owns a storage business that has state of the art security and it has never been broken into. Make sure you pick one with gated entry and multiple cameras at the very least. Make sure you use a quality lock, which is probably the most important precaution you can take.
Believe me, we don’t have a clue either. My parents’ lives were really stressful at that point and nothing valuable was taken or trashed so they didn’t pursue it–but I’d sure like to know what was up with that.