Thread: Frightening Moments in Self Storage

From the sublime to the heart-stopping; I thought it might be fun, interesting, educational or whatever descriptive you prefer, to share those moments that have scared us for one reason or another.

Share your scary stories. We've had them ranging from a simple fear of fire or finding the man asphyxiated from the fumes of the hibachi he was cooking on at the back of his unit behind a blanket he had hung from the sprinkler pipes. He seemed to think we wouldn't smell it or see the smoke?! Huh?

Or the time the police department warned us about a tenant who was on the nutty side. It doesn't bode well for a restful nights' sleep when the cops stop by and say to you; "If you see his vehicle in the area phone 911 immediately! He's dangerous." "Yeah okay, so Officer, he's here right now, so could you please stick around here while he loads up his stuff and leaves?"

Or finding out a tenant is wanted for a decades old murder case, and knowing you've ticked this tenant off by putting him up for auction. Gee, he could have offed me too when he was mad!

It takes a special type of person to handle all the personalities and the type of stress these unknown types of people can create.

We have had the typical self storage nightmares. The first month I got into the storage business, I was by myself (hubby worked elsewhere) at a beautiful 500 unit facility in Tucson, AZ. A man walked in, he must have been 6'5" tall with wild hair, wanting to rent a 5x10 unit. This was back in 1987 and I was quite naive. He looked a little nuts. Today I would find a way (no units available, whatever!) to send him packing. I rented him the unit and watched him throughout the day on the monitors...yes, we had them even back then. No computers, though. Anyway, he starts roller skating around and around the facility. What ticked me off was there was a bathroom right behind the office and he chose to pee on the building. When my husband got home I told him about what was going on. He went back to his unit where he had set up a cot and even had pictures on the wall. John told him he could not sleep there but the guy insisted he was going to. He didn't want to set this nutcase off so he politely told him that when we closed at night we let the dobermans out. He rolled up his cot, we gave him back his money and he was gone. We actually had a 4lb Maltese.
We have loads of stories. One in Florida where we had to chase an alligator off the property while riding in the golf cart...Tana

How about the time a guy came in carrying a pair of bolt cutters - I stopped him telling him that he could not be on the property with them. He told me that he needed to cut the lock off his mothers unit so he could get his things because she wouldn't give him the key.

I told him he needed to leave and he threatened to knock my block off if I didn't let him in.

Needless the say the sheriff was called and he didn't get in.

Then there was the time I was doing a walk around and a ravin tried to bomb me with an egg!!

Storage is such an exciting place to work - some days!


Other days you can sit here with nothing to do and no one to talk to all day!!!




PS - Tana I would love to see the video of you chasing a gator on a golf cart!!! I've had to chase dogs, but never a gator!!!

I had an assistant manager in Cape Coral that got trapped on the property by a very rare, flying black snake. You've probably never heard of this rare breed of snake. When I got to her, I transformed the regular old black snake to the rare breed. He sailed really well for about 30 feet.

Bob (Astro)

At least he wasn't a red & yellow snake! Those I've hidden from also until a real man walks up with a shovel and takes care of the problem. Hmm, I know the cockroaches fly, but in all my years growing up in Florida I never met a flying black snake. I think that makes me happy!

Anyone ever been truly scared or frightened by a tenant or things that go bump in the night?

just the usual...we auctioned off a tenant's unit because he was in jail (which we didn't know at the time)....all of his mail was returned, none of his phone #'s worked, including his emergency contact relative's phone number.

A few months later...guess who walks in the door looking for his stuff? and this was a guy who I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. My heart stopped for a moment, but he was actually pretty nice about the whole thing.

Wow! You guys make me wonder why I got into this business. I am doing it as a favor to a friend. But I got my first panic attack the other night.

So, my family and I go to a medieval fighter practice on Thursday evenings, which leave the storage facility unmanned for about 2 hours or so. Well, last Thursday, when we came back to drop my son off(he is the one that lives onsite) we noticed a vehicle watching us. It would drive up to the end of my driveway, then wait 30 seconds or so, then take off. It did this 3 or 4 times. Well, me being a paranoid as it is, said to my husband.."something isn't right" so we called the PD. They came out and talked to us, then drove through the neighborhood that the car went to. As they were off on their journey, I asked my son to unlock the office so I can check it out and make sure the alarm is set. As I was getting ready to set the alarm, I noticed all my motion sensitive lights on in my a/c building across from the office. Now it is 10 pm and NO ONE should be in there. So we ended up having 4 cop cars and one K-9 unit show up and keep us here til around midnight. This was my first experience with this, and I know they are bound to get worse. All I can do is sit back, take a deep breathe and maybe shoot at whatever moves..lol.

Hey SB, look at it this way. If that was a bad guy, he/she now knows that you will brook no nonsense, and so will his bad guy friends. If it was a good guy, he/she knows how seriously you take security on your property. The cops also know that you are serious about security. Have you offered you local/county fuzz a donated storage space to store old donuts, er offical items or charitable collected items? This will give you a ongoing police presence.

And, yes, there are a few, emphasize few, bad moments in this business. But the good far outweigh the bad.

Bob (Astro)

I guess my scariest time was just after I began working here as an Asst. Manager. The owner told us about this time the cops were here looking for this guy. I can't remember if he was a killer or what, but I know it wasn't simple like breaking and entering. It was an assault of some kind. Well, there was a bunch of cops here when they opened his unit and apparently he had been sleeping in it! There was a sleeping bag and some clothes and a lantern and such. That really creeped me out! But that wasn't the scary part.

The scary part was we had a gate we locked at 7:30pm and opened in the morning at that time and my sister, who was the gate keeper, asked me to do it one night. So i pack up my 1 year old and my 3 year old into the van and do a quick sweep around the facility. I noticed this creepy looking guy watching me from across the way so i finish the look through and get out to lock the gate. All of a sudden, this guy starts walking towards us!!! Oh my god, i paniced so bad. I finished locking the gate and jumped back in the van and I was just putting it into drive when he put his hand on my open window!

I looked at this guy, big, huge guy in ragged clothes, missing teeth and had a scar on the side of his neck, and my daughter chipped hi to him. He gave me this big smile and said, "Do you have a smoke?"

I thought my heart was going to explode. I grabbed my pack without even looking and gave him the whole thing. All he said was "I thank ya kindly ma'm." He turned around and walked off and i went home and collapsed.

Hwy 70... my heart is pounding! Wow! Whew! Relief!

My husband and I arrived home after midnight from caring for our parents. As usual we hit the gate opener from the car, pulled in and parked. I reached down for my purse, hubby was opening the door and BAM!

A car came screaming up at us nose to nose from the back of the property, no headlights, no nothing, scared the bejesus out of us!

Two guys jump out and come towards us. Hubby is pushing me back into the car, I'm scared, worried about him and wondering what the he** is going on.

Hubby asks "What the he** are you doing here? Property is closed etc." Big burly dude puts the question right back to hubby and he responds "We live here, you have no business here..."

The car windows are closed, hubby locked me in so I can't hear every word, but the body language is full of bravado from the two guys. I'm concerned about the possibility of a physical confrontation two against one. I've got cell phone in hand, local direct dial Police number up on my screen and ready to hit dial if these two don't back down FAST!

One guy reaches for his pocket and whips out a ... shield. You know what was going through my mind as I'm watching this all go down.

Turns out they were two plain clothes officers from the neighboring big city to the north of us. They had strong armed a fire dept. guy into using the gate over ride key to let them into our property since the local PD had no access. They had no warrant, no nothing, but they were staking out a unit on our property.

The next morning a friend in the Fire Dept. is apologizing all over the place on behalf of all of them. He was worried about us when he came on shift and heard what happened so he called to check in on us. Meanwhile, the Fire Captain is reaming new ones at the Fire station and I'm raising Cain with the neighboring PD. Talk about an arrogant bunch of idiots up north!

Keep in mind, there is an override code for our property in the 911 system, they could have kept watch from the street as there is only one way into our site and had they followed protocol and procedures they would have known we lived on site, they would have had access to our cell phone numbers and all. Instead they opted to play big bad a** cops and scare a year or two off of my expected life span.

NOTE TO ALL - As a business address, and even with the multitude of facilities nationwide, some still don't know there are people living on site.

It is a good idea to make sure you are listed in your local 9-1-1 system as living on site in the event of an emergency situation. A simple letter on company letterhead noting who lives on site, your telephone and cell numbers and a gate code for 24/7 access will speed things up should you ever need to make that call.