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What Makes a Good Self Storage Facility

  • Customers will try to find out as much about the self storage facility from different sources. They will go online, ask a friend and even call around. Of course some facilities will do their best to put their best feet forward to impress their potential customers. Since not every customer knows what separates a good storage facility from a bad one, we have listed a couple of things to look for below.
    Is the location is a safe area? This is a question that a lot of new customers do think about. When they are looking around for the best quality self storage facility, it is important to really know where the facility is located. If you are not sure by looking online or in the yellow pages, do searches on a map or you can call the storage facility to ask them. Then you can usually look on a map or find some information about that area. It is even a great idea to take time to drive by the location. Take a look at the block the facility is on, the block before and the block after the facility. You can get a good idea of the area the location is in.
    Doe the store take care of doors, fences, ect? As you are driving by or deciding to visit the facility, you can observe the facility itself. How do they take care of their property? Are the doors worn? Does the facility look like it could use a paint job? Does the facility look like someone has been there in the last couple of years? Sometimes the environment can overwhelm the storage facility if someone is not taking care of it.
    Is the location clean? When you go down a visit the facility or drive by does the facility look like someone actually cares about the appearance of the facility? Is there a lot of debris just blowing around the facility? When you walk into the facility can you tell the last time the carpet has been vacuumed? There are many more questions to ask yourself as you visiting facilities. The reason you are thinking about these things is to determine whether or not the facility will take care of whatever you need. If the storage managers take care of the facility and insure the quality of their facility, they will take your requests seriously as well. There will be facility managers who try to shine even though their facility is not pleasant. Unfortunately the appearance and condition of the facility, might attract some unwanted visitors such as bugs, rats and other things.
    What kind of security technology is at the store? We are not saying that a facility has to be completely locked down to the point where there is an armed guard standing out front, but typically a quality facility will invest in some security technology. Facilities will actually brag about their technology if they have some. They will tell you about their access control gate, where only those people that have pin number allowed access. They will tell about their motion sensors that will have the lights turn on when you enter that portion of the storage facility. That’s the company thinking about saving money and not have their lights on all the time wasting money, which in turn makes your rental costs go up.
    Does the staff back up the store? What does the staff really think about the facility they are working for? Do they think this facility is good to rent from? Even if the facility manager does not think so but they still decided to say yes, you will be able to tell. Then you have to decide if you want to rent from a facility that decides to lie. If the facility manager says that the quality of this facility is not great at all and they go on for a time telling you what’s wrong, then you have to decide if you want to rent from a facility who’s manager does not like it there. You have many things to think about.
    How full is the facility? That will definitely tell you some things. If the facility is full that could tell you that people like to rent there for some reason. Is it the location, the price, friendly staff or something else? If you time it just right, you might be able to bump into a person that already rents there. You might be able to ask them a couple of questions to find out what made this facility the one they wanted to rent from.
    As you see, there are many different things that make one self storage facility better quality than another one. Not all facilities are created equal. In fact, the basics of self storage are the same, but every facility tries to put their spin on it. After all this information, finding the right facility for you could be as simple as having an honest conversation with the property manager. Sometimes the facilities that do not have a lot of flash, get the most customers due to their honesty.

    Customers will try to find out as much about the self storage facility from different sources. They will go online, ask a friend and even call around. Of course some facilities will do their best to put their best feet forward to impress their potential customers. Since not every customer knows what separates a good storage facility from a bad one, we have listed a couple of things to look for below.

    Is the location is a safe area? This is a question that a lot of new customers do think about. When they are looking around for the best quality self storage facility, it is important to really know where the facility is located. If you are not sure by looking online or in the yellow pages, do searches on a map or you can call the storage facility to ask them. Then you can usually look on a map or find some information about that area. It is even a great idea to take time to drive by the location. Take a look at the block the facility is on, the block before and the block after the facility. You can get a good idea of the area the location is in.

    Doe the store take care of doors, fences, ect? As you are driving by or deciding to visit the facility, you can observe the facility itself. How do they take care of their property? Are the doors worn? Does the facility look like it could use a paint job? Does the facility look like someone has been there in the last couple of years? Sometimes the environment can overwhelm the storage facility if someone is not taking care of it.

    Is the location clean? When you go down a visit the facility or drive by does the facility look like someone actually cares about the appearance of the facility? Is there a lot of debris just blowing around the facility? When you walk into the facility can you tell the last time the carpet has been vacuumed? There are many more questions to ask yourself as you visiting facilities. The reason you are thinking about these things is to determine whether or not the facility will take care of whatever you need. If the storage managers take care of the facility and insure the quality of their facility, they will take your requests seriously as well. There will be facility managers who try to shine even though their facility is not pleasant. Unfortunately the appearance and condition of the facility, might attract some unwanted visitors such as bugs, rats and other things.

    What kind of security technology is at the store? We are not saying that a facility has to be completely locked down to the point where there is an armed guard standing out front, but typically a quality facility will invest in some security technology. Facilities will actually brag about their technology if they have some. They will tell you about their access control gate, where only those people that have pin number allowed access. They will tell about their motion sensors that will have the lights turn on when you enter that portion of the storage facility. That’s the company thinking about saving money and not have their lights on all the time wasting money, which in turn makes your rental costs go up.

    Does the staff back up the store? What does the staff really think about the facility they are working for? Do they think this facility is good to rent from? Even if the facility manager does not think so but they still decided to say yes, you will be able to tell. Then you have to decide if you want to rent from a facility that decides to lie. If the facility manager says that the quality of this facility is not great at all and they go on for a time telling you what’s wrong, then you have to decide if you want to rent from a facility who’s manager does not like it there. You have many things to think about.

    How full is the facility? That will definitely tell you some things. If the facility is full that could tell you that people like to rent there for some reason. Is it the location, the price, friendly staff or something else? If you time it just right, you might be able to bump into a person that already rents there. You might be able to ask them a couple of questions to find out what made this facility the one they wanted to rent from.

    As you see, there are many different things that make one self storage facility better quality than another one. Not all facilities are created equal. In fact, the basics of self storage are the same, but every facility tries to put their spin on it. After all this information, finding the right facility for you could be as simple as having an honest conversation with the property manager. Sometimes the facilities that do not have a lot of flash, get the most customers due to their honesty.

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    Disclamer: This entry is intended to promote our partner StorageMart and some or all participants received compensation.

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