Sorry Autodoc, we are keeping a very close eye on any storage job openings in the Keys, so you'll have to get in line behind us!!!

I agree with you on the facility size, and also location.

Here's the highlights of our week:

Tuesday, one of our business tenant's employees runs into the gate, he's late for work and punched in the gate code and stepped on the gas....wasn't thinking about waiting for the gate to open....$302 worth of damage to the gate. Fortunately, my husband was outside talking to the landscaper so he saw it, plus it was caught on camera. We called the gate company immediately because the gate was stuck halfway open, and wouldn't open or close, it was off track and had some other minor damage. They came out and fixed it the same day, the customer paid the bill (with much grumbling). Seriously doubt he would have paid the bill if there wasn't eye witnesses and if we hadn't gotten a signed statement from the employee before letting him go.

Then husband goes on the facility walk, because we are off Sunday and Monday...Tuesday is usually the big day for catching all the weekend stuff. Three tenants had accessed their unit and had left their unit locked open...didn't slide the bolt in before putting their lock on....so anyone could open the door. We called the customers to tell them to come over and lock up their unit properly. One customer has oil leaking out from under his unit...for the second time.

Wednesday....had a bus plate (I think that's what my husband said) on one of our climate controlled area circuit breaker boxes burn up....All the power to that section knocked off. No airconditioning or lights in large section of climate control. Husband calls electrician, open doors to other climate controlled sections to cool area off....electrician drives all over town trying to find part, finally pulls it off another box in their warehouse and fixes problem. After the electricity is fixed, it's just gotten dark and husband walks around closing doors and catches 2 college students smoking a non-tobacco product between the buildings.

Thursday...customer in giant U-Haul pulls into parking lot at 6:30 at night (after closing), beeps horn....in desperate need of a 10 x 20 climate controlled unit. Has to turn U-Haul in before 7 am or pay penalty...drove down from Virginia all day and just arrived in town, no other storage facility he has been by is open. We go downstairs and rent him a unit. He unloads U-Haul and we check it in the next morning. He flies back to Virginia that afternoon. Stuff will be in storage here for at least 2 years while he goes out of country working for the government overseas.

We now have a total of 4 empty units out of 661. We would probably have pretty good occupancy if we weren't on site.....but right now we are able to move out units and move them in the same day because we are here to take care of it. I moved out two 10 x 10's climates yesterday morning the moment the customers got the last piece of furniture out and rented them both within the hour. Today we moved out a 10 x 20 and had it rented in 8 minutes.

Remote management would work fine in a perfect storage world where everything runs smoothly and all customers behave ideally.....unfortunately around here, that's a rare day when you get that.