The managers at Dino’s Storage take great pride in providing our customers with a wonderful facility to store their belongings. We walk our properties daily to ensure every unit is locked properly, all the lights are functioning, we provide routine landscape care and pest control and we keep our isles, hallways, elevators, loading areas, offices and outside property tidy. Through all of our diligent efforts to provide a safe and secure home for your items, it is also up to the customer to ensure they are not storing items that would attract pest or bring harm to the facility and other customers.
Here in the Midwest we experience an array of different weather types and just like you or I, certain pests would rather harbor in luxury than brave the humidity or below zero temperatures. We have every customer initial stating that they will not be storing flammable, explosive, hazardous, perishable, living, illegal or contraband items in their unit but it is up to every customer to honestly follow this rule and it is hard for managers to sort out a violator once the customer has moved in and locked the unit door.
I would like to share a few helpful tips that will help you to have a pleasant storage experience:
We do not allow customers to smoke on the property but occasionally someone will drive up to their unit with a lit cigarette in hand, thus the reason we ask that you do not store anything flammable, explosive or tires. This reminds me of a facility in Arizona a few years ago, someone decided to toss a lit cigarette and it set a spark to a unit, the unit was full of tires (which are highly flammable) and shortly after the whole facility was engulfed in flames. As you can imagine this was a very devastating time for not only the property owners but all the innocent storage customers as well, all due to the negligence of a couple of customers that didn’t follow the rules to help ensure the safety of the whole property.
- We ask that should you need to put items like lawnmowers, ATVs or any items requiring gasoline into storage, please drain the gas out as much as possible.
- Do not store new or used tires in the unit unless they are attached to a vehicle.
- Items such as spray paint, gallons of paint or flammable cleaning products should also not be placed in the storage unit.
- And most importantly, DO NOT SMOKE on the property and put the whole facility in danger.
Many customers will pack up their whole home and move it into storage during times of transition, and when I say whole home, I mean they store not only clothes, beds and furniture but they also will clean out their kitchen cupboards and place food inside the unit. A lot of time people will not stop to think about the perishable items and the potential mayhem it could cause inside their unit.
- Please do not store food inside your unit as it could cause a potential outbreak of cockroaches or even attract mice into your unit. Again, no matter how diligent management is in providing pest control, it is up to the customer to store smart. As we all know, cockroaches and mice breed quickly and both are hard to control once an outbreak occurs.**If you have food items to remove from your home during a move, consider donating them to a food bank, neighbor or friend but please do not place them into storage during your transition**
- Even if you are in a hurry to move, please take time to wash your clothes and pack them away in plastic totes. This way you will have fresh clothing when you pull them out of storage and you also reduce the risk of bringing in any type of bugs that could have possibly been attracted to your clothes/bedding before the move. Storing material items in plastic totes will also prevent mice from chewing through your boxes and bags to snuggle up next to your favorite sweater.
- Often people will relax in their favorite chair or sofa with a bowl or popcorn or other snack while watching a movie and there is the potential of little crumbs falling between the cushion. Please take the time to vacuum your furniture before bringing it to storage as these little crumbs could also attract unwanted pests. This goes for mattresses as well. Most Dino’s Storage locations sell mattress bags and sofa/chair covers and we recommend you wrap your items in plastic not only to detract pests but to also reduce dust collecting on your items over a long period of time.
- If you are storing your items in bags or boxes, you might also consider lining the unit floor with pallets and then start moving your items into storage. You could also take extra precaution by placing mouse traps or cockroach bait around your unit, to provide a little extra safety of your belongings.
- If you are able, visit your storage unit monthly to look for signs or unwanted pests…chances are good that your items are just how you left them but it never hurts to check in.
You may think that it is obviously not the best idea to store living items in a unit but I have seen it happen. I have had to evict a tenant for attempting to reside in his unit and I have also had to extract a kitten from inside a unit. Not only is it against the rules to storage yourself or any living creature in a unit but it is also inhumane and a cause of health concern to the whole facility. Real plants are also not proper to store in a unit as they do not obtain proper sunshine or water and die which leads to dead foliage and bugs.
This brings me to the final point; illegal or contraband items. Not only is it illegal to be in possession of these items outside a storage facility but we do not want this type of activity inside our facilities either. The first facility that I ever managed was in Tucson, AZ just off the highway to Mexico. It was a nice new facility but I was involved with the city drug task force and had drug sniffing dogs come through the facility at random to check the property. Placing a gun in a storage unit is also not allowed. Should you forfeit your unit to an auction or in the possible rare instance your unit is broken into, you risk your registered firearm being in the possession of another person, so please keep them in a locked safe and not in storage.
Please also remember that your storage facility is not responsible for the safety and security of your property, you are. We do offer optional insurance coverage if you do not have your own. Hopefully this post has given you insight to helpful storage tips and the reasoning behind our rules as we want you have the most pleasant storage experience possible!!
