Lisa T with the day's reality check on the story regarding the prospective owner. All I can say is wow. What is it about this industry that has some people believing that storage is an auto-pilot sort of business that is somehow immune to the pressures and constraints that every other operation faces?

Nothing is recession-PROOF, though storage has more resistance to downward trends than most industries and we'll bounce back because economic history shows that down cycles are bordered by better times. Still, the nonchalance of "anybody can do this" shown by some is insulting to the folks who have invested heavily of their time and money in building successful operations and to those of you who contribute to those efforts every day.

Our facility is an indoor operation, so the only access is during regular business hours. That's 8am - 7pm, Monday-Saturday, and 10-6 Sunday. At the end of the day, our employees make sure that everyone is out, lock up and alarm the building, then go home. No access is allowed until the following morning. Closing hours are very strictly enforced, even at the risk of pissing off customers.

As a matter of fact, when potential customers call and ask about our hours, I make it a point to emphasize that the closing times are very strictly enforced, and that they need to be finished and out of the facility by closing time, on any particular day. I may lose a few possible customers here and there, but I would prefer that rather than set a bad precedent on move-in day where they get to dictate the terms and conditions under which they are allowed to use the facility. Their choice, as I sometimes have to remind unruly customers, is to use our facilities under the terms and conditions we have instituted, or to find another facility that is more to their liking. I think that our 95% occupancy rate speaks for the general consensus as to whether or not we're successful in this respect.

One thing to note is that we're less than 700 feet from one of the downtown homeless shelters, and have many of them as customers, so the last thing that I want to worry about is having them try to live in their units. The only means of access to our facility, a converted warehouse, is through a large drive-in, roll up door, so I think that most customers understand and appreciate the need for such strictness, given our location. At least after reflection...

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James A Mathews
Facility Manager
CBD Indoor Mini Storage

I can't agree with your comment. People that go fishing and hunting leave about that time. Around here, alot of people go fishing and if their tackle is in the unit, but they can't get it, they can't go.

and it's not just that either. I had a wedding that i was helping set up and completely forgot that me dress was in my unit here. I live a couple miles away so I couldn't just walk out there like some facilities that the manager lives on site. I came at 2am and spent a good hour digging around in my unit trying to find the bag that held the dress.

I'm not denying the fact that there will always be people who try and sneek out, but good, honest, hard working people sometimes need things from their units at weird times too.

We have 24 access, but most of our tenets seem to come and go up until about 8-8:30. there are a few business tenets after that, but most of the cops we see are a part of the NC Achohol and Drug Law Enforcent that has a unit here. It's pretty rare to see them otherwise. Luckily!!

Maybe it is an area thing, but I agree with Alexlekas.

If you need your fishing tackle, you should've gotten it when the facility was open. If you need milk for breakfast, you go to the grocery store before it closes. My facility is in a suburban area, so early morning hunters/fisherman are not an issue.

My tenants pretty much are paying me for two things, dry and safe. Dry I can provide 24/7 pretty easily, safe is just a little harder. Gate hours from 6am to 9pm are the times their stuff is most "at risk", from 9pm to 6am I have no concerns whatsoever. The BIGGEST risk to "safe" would be the guy that comes onto the property at 3am under the cover of darkness knowing nobody is around.

The ratio of "good, honest, hard working people" that need access to a storage unit at 3am to people that are more likely involved-with-something-they shouldn't-be-that-I-don't-want-to-be-a-part-of that time of night is probably 1:10 in my area.

If they need access after 9pm, they can go elsewhere. (I have spent many a night helping new tenants move their stuff into their units well into the wee hours of the morning. If they arrive before 9 and can't get the job done before 9, they're welcome to stay and get it done, it just means that I watch the late show and monitor cameras until they're off the property.)

24 HR access is a privilege that we grant judiciously.
A tenant's job was repairing equipment in bars and he was granted.
The Roto-Rooter company stored their BIG HUNKIN drain cleaning machine here and they were granted access.
The dumpster company has 24 hr as does any local sheriff's deputy or the community patrol officers.
Tom, Dick and Harry do not........

Just wondering....is there a law or anything against only granting certain customer's 24 hour access? I do the same thing, I have ferry workers that need access 24/7 because of their work schedule. I am just wondering if there is any legal responsibility to offer it to all customers, not just the "trustworthy" ones. I certainly wouldn't grant it to some of my customers!

No laws in place that I'm aware of; but there's always a lawyer somewhere...

In our case, it is considered a privilege to be earned and can just as easily be revoked!

A lot of people ask, and I simply respond with "Do you really want a lot of people wandering around here where your things are stored at three in the morning? Do you think people who have nothing better to do at 3:00 a.m. would be up to anything good?" Most times, the person asking agrees and state they don't really need the access, but were curious.

Quite simply, it is usually the contractors who want early access and 99.8% of the time, we simply put them on an early access schedule as opposed to a 24 hour access.

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Gina 6k
CochraneStorage dot com
Morgan Hill, California
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough!