Self storage offers people a secure place to store possessions they don’t have room for where they live or work, or that they don’t need on a daily basis. At Dino’s Storage we offer storage units ranging room 25 to 300 square feet. Dino’s specializes in providing modern self-storage facilities to customers in our service areas. Our various locations provide a variety of storage opportunities, from outdoor storage for boats and automobiles, to indoor storage for general items, to climate controlled storage for your special keepsakes.
While there have always been people or businesses willing to rent space to others for temporary storage, America’s first commercially viable storage operation wasn’t founded until the early 1900s, by Martin Bekins. His company, founded in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1891, served the storage needs of families who were moving west and eventually became the well-known Bekins Moving & Storage Company.
It wasn’t until the 1960s that the modern self storage industry as we know it today came into being, according to a New York Times article by Jon Mooallem. For the two decades that followed, Mooallem writes, “storage remained a low-profile industry. For the most part, storage units were meant to temporarily absorb the possessions of those in transition: moving, marrying or divorcing or dealing with a death in the family.”
Not much has changed since then, except we tend to do more moving, marrying, divorcing and dealing inherited stuff than ever before. Consequently, the self storage industry has grown to meet the demand.
So who uses these self storage units? A great many of them are rented by individuals. According to the Self Storage Association, one out of every 10 households in the country rents a self storage unit, while businesses account for 30 percent of self storage customers.
Individuals put everything in self storage from holiday decorations to seasonal clothing, sporting equipment, furniture and vehicles. Businesses use self storage for documents, excess office equipment and furniture, tools, inventory and supplies. Unless it violates the terms of the facility (ammunition, perishable items and live animals are a few of the commonly restricted items), it can and is being stored.
When you rent self storage space, there’s a contract involved, written by lawyers. The SSA defines self-storage as “the term applied to facilities offering rental on a month-to-month basis where the tenant applies his lock and has sole access to his unit.” That protects the self storage facility from creating a condition called bailment, whereby it would assume responsibility for the care, custody or control of a customer’s goods. Unlike a dry cleaner, for instance, who might be liable for burning a hole in that cashmere sweater you dropped off, the self storage facility has no responsibility for the care of your stuff, other than what’s stipulated in the rental contract.
You are responsible for the insurance on and the care of your own stuff. And once you’ve signed the contract, the storage facility owners won’t enter your unit unless they have really good, legally defensible, reason to think you’re violating the terms, which will stipulate materials you can’t store and activities you can’t conduct from the rental unit.
It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is upon us. Time to get your Thanksgiving and Christmas items out. Time for all the holiday shopping and family gatherings. Then when all is said and done, where are you going to put all the extra things that you may not need until Spring or Summer? Storage is a great option. If you have items like electronics, pictures, antiques, furniture, family heirlooms or other valuable items, you may want to consider climate controlled and humidity controlled storage. Dino’s is a great start. Dino’s in Elkhorn has easy access climate controlled storage. It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter.