Thread: new manager needing help

hello, i found this form and i am not sure if its for a certain company, but you guys seem like you can help me. i have worked for public storage for 2 months now and was just recently given the chance to become property manager of one of out rougher branches. the lady who attempted before me failed miserably, and now i am stuck cleaning up after her. i had 9 leases go missing, but i have managed to find 6. the others are so old they have most likely been shredded. my delinquency is out rageous. we call our delinquents at the beginning of the month as a courtesy call and she didnt call any of them till aug 14th (they all get their late fees before the 10th). so im hoping with a new month coming up, i can get that cleaned up. my property has no cameras and locks keep going missing. corporate wont give me the budget to get cameras either. i recently showed 2 of my units and the units would not open. before the last lady left she said she did a full unit audit and everything is ok. i have since done a vacant unit audit and found 5 units with seized up hasps. anyone have any tips for dealing with these hasps? i am way over budget on maintence because of the last lady. if i can get them to open, i can get the door open and remove the hasps and soak them. whats something to soak them in for a day? my budget is so over, they wont even buy me new hasps to replace myself.
any other tips would be nice. like i said, ive been in the self storage industry for 2 months now, and they throw me a property like this. im up for the challenge, but i want to see what other advise and tips are out there.

thanks.

-kylie

Wow, that sounds pretty stressful. Been there....
But, no offense, but I'm pretty shocked to hear you say that your major corporate employer won't purchase hasps/(door slide-locks)? I can't believe that, that's strange. It's standard protocol for any mini-storage/corp. or non/small to have those on hand, I know we have about 20. Are you communicating with the proper person/your proper district manager there?
About the collections, just keep on them, within the bounds of what you can legally do, i.e. - amount of phone-calls, required notices, etc. Then lien notices if necessary. To be honest, I'm on top of all of the required aspects of collections and it's not going to well lately, as I tell some people short of going to a past-due tenants home; lol.......all I can do is what I already do call them (but I'm not going to obsessively call and harassas them, also I'm not their babysitter) and mail various notices. After all of that there isn't much you can do.

Hello and welcome to the forum.

For the units with no lease, overlock and lock out of the gate until they come to the office and sign a new lease. You can put a note on their door about coming to the office if it is easy for them to get on the property without using an access code.

As far as the hasps, we use a dry lube spray, nothing like wd-40, that will just gum up the hasp and collect a ton of dust.

Glad you found us, and we do pick on your company a lot here, but it is because most of your company causes some problems for the rest of the industry. However since you are here asking questions, you are a great exception, and hope we can help

First, welcome to the group. No, it is not for any one company, or area. We are from all over the country, Canada, Europe, and I think Mexico. We work for small and large companies, and some of us, not me, own their own facilities.

Okay, let's see if we can help. You have good advice in the previous posts. Along with the dry-spray or sikicone, a hammer and screwdrive might help. Spray the latches and use the hammer and screwdriver to drive the latch open. It dawns on me, that if you are new, you might not know that sometimes if you push down on the door or lift it a touch, it might release the latch so that you open it. Cheap and easy to try this first. Some places will rent two spaces, either side-by-side or back to back, and pin one of the doors closed. Sometimes, they will turn the latch around to the inside of the door.

Next, on the spaces with now contract, I agree. Overlock the spaces, and if you can, disable their gate codes. If this doesn't work in a month or so, get you DM to cut the locks and try to identify the owner by what you find in the spaces.

Next, you may have run across a DM that will not spend money on your facility, rather than corporate not spending. I know that PS used, and probably still does, have a department responsible for the maintenance of their properties.

Keep asking questions, cause someone here will be able to give advice. Once you get this wreck fixed, just think of the pride of accomplishment you will have acquired.

Good luck,

Welcome to the forum.

I don't think I can add much to what others have said.

I was going to mention the same thing Astro said about the possibility of the doors being pinned -- I have a few like that. I converted two units into one large and pinned the second door.

Good luck with this property, and remember we are all here to help any way we can.

haha thanks for the quick replies guys. shows good customer service!!

but my boss's moto is "do whatever you want, just dont get me in trouble" lol. but no, no camera system from him. there is talk of my boyfriend and i obtaining the onsite apartment and that would be great. he is an electrician and if i could just get the money for the cameras, he could easily instal them. then any maintence work i need he could do for me in the evenings. i have a friend who is a scrapper that comes to clean out my units if there are larger items left behind. he doesnt charge me. our maintence company charges 200$ a load. then i dont have a safe on the property. before me, they used to hide the money in the mini fridge under the front desk. now i hide it in a random file folder every night. as for my tnts that dont have leases, 1 is vacating this month, and the other 2 were supposed to go to auction long ago. aparently the lady before me assured them that if we didnt have their lease, they wouldnt go to auction. so even a gate lock out and overlocked units wont convince them to come in.

but at the moment, the hasps are my biggest concern. they are already old hasps in need of replacment. easy enough for me to do. ive thought about taking a flat head and a mallet and pounding on them. the boyfriend broke the wood handle on one of his hammers trying to get one open. i was thinking maybe some liquid wrench. i am still waiting on my supply of silicone to come in. i guess that place has been out for a while. but i have 6 cans coming in soon.

but i guess the combo of a bad poor neighborhood and bad management skills has run the property down. and ive been given 2 months to give it my best shot (the other manager lady ive talked about is on maternity leave at the moment) and i plan to. im young and im hard headed, and now i have you guys to learn from. works for me!

I had to clean up the business after coming back sept 2009. So I know how you feel. I go by the Tennessee Forclosure List and it tell's you when to send out letters, put them in lockout and also how many days you need to have the auction. I don't know if Indiana has a State Forclosure list or not, but I would look into it. Good luck.

Welcome birdfever & 09manager to the forum! Bird, absolutely this place is for everyone to learn from each other, glad to have you aboard.

I have to agree with finallyfoundit, there should be a supply of hasps available to you. They're only a couple dollars each, especially when purchased in bulk, which I would presume your DM could do for the facilities he/she is responsible for.

Sounds like you have your hands full and quite a challenge ahead of you, but spend some time in the evenings reading through here. Use the search feature and read about the maintenance threads, door cleaning, Spring cleaning etc. You'll find tons of helpful hints from others before you that learned through trail & error. At least you can learn from all of us what works and doesn't so you don't have to go through the school of hard knocks like we did. Best wishes and please keep us apprised of your progress, I'm sure you'll do just fine with youth and a strong will going for you!

Welcome to the forum Birdfever69.

So you work for the imfamous PS, we'll try not to hold that against you.

Just kidding.

About those hasps. If they are rusted out you can try a product called Naval Jelly that you can pick up from just about any hardware store and it only costs a couple bucks for a small jar. Take the hasps off and apply a good coat of the jelly and let them sit over night and by morning most of the rust should be gone and if not re-apply until there good. If naval jel can't fix it then those hasps have to be replaced.

Good Luck!

Originally Posted by birdfever69

hello, i found this form and i am not sure if its for a certain company, but you guys seem like you can help me. i have worked for public storage for 2 months now and was just recently given the chance to become property manager of one of out rougher branches. the lady who attempted before me failed miserably, and now i am stuck cleaning up after her. i had 9 leases go missing, but i have managed to find 6. the others are so old they have most likely been shredded. my delinquency is out rageous. we call our delinquents at the beginning of the month as a courtesy call and she didnt call any of them till aug 14th (they all get their late fees before the 10th). so im hoping with a new month coming up, i can get that cleaned up. my property has no cameras and locks keep going missing. corporate wont give me the budget to get cameras either. i recently showed 2 of my units and the units would not open. before the last lady left she said she did a full unit audit and everything is ok. i have since done a vacant unit audit and found 5 units with seized up hasps. anyone have any tips for dealing with these hasps? i am way over budget on maintence because of the last lady. if i can get them to open, i can get the door open and remove the hasps and soak them. whats something to soak them in for a day? my budget is so over, they wont even buy me new hasps to replace myself.
any other tips would be nice. like i said, ive been in the self storage industry for 2 months now, and they throw me a property like this. im up for the challenge, but i want to see what other advise and tips are out there.

thanks.

-kylie

Just my advice - Stand your ground and Insist on the necessary changes for both your safety, the safety of your clients and the reputation of your company!!!! Insist with your owner/District manager that they find the funds to support what you need to do to turn that facility around.

You have more of a challenge than anyone should be given without a budget. Remind them that you are a NEW site Manager and you need a NEW budget whether she went over hers or not. You can not manage a site without the proper equipment. You can not tell people you are secure if you are not. They are putting THEIR reputation on the line with a negative property such as this.

Seized up Hasps = spray lubricant on them - soak them in the lubricant before you remove them. then put a thick wax type (car wax) of product on them to allow them to move together easily.
Good Luck!