The truth is, there IS more storage space! So what if you have to drive down the block to use it.... Find out what self storage offers as HC interviews Michael Scanlon, Jr., president and CEO of the Self Storage Association:

 

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HC: What percentage of Americans use self storage?

Mike: From our research, it would indicate that one in 17 American households is currently using self storage. That would be about six percent.

HC: What are the most common reasons to rent storage units?

Mike: Well, lifestyle transitions are the two key words. There are several of them that cause people to use storage. Couples get married. You end up having two households come together into one. There’s always excess stuff, so that goes into storage.

People are moving. “Empty nesters” are downsizing from a large house with a bunch of kids to a smaller home or a retirement home.

If there is a death in the family, that’s a lifestyle transition. Home renovations. You’ve also got college kids. What do they do in May? They’ve got to get out of the dorm, and they don’t get back in until September. So what do they do with their stuff during the summer? They put it into storage.

HC: Is there anyone you believe could benefit from self storage who is not currently using it?

Mike: I think if you stop and look at it, we cover America. We fit them like a glove. There are some 40,000 self storage facilities across the United States now, and they’re in every community. I think most people drive by a couple of them on their way to work every day. We’re there for everyone, and everyone basically uses it. Every group you can think of demographically is using self storage for something.

HC: How do you recommend renters keep track of what’s in a storage unit?

Mike: Well, they can do inventory as they put it in there, either paper inventory or if they have a camera, take pictures of stuff as they go to the storage locker. You can video inventory what you’ve got in there. For insurance purposes, it’s very important to have that in case of some sort of disaster, like these hurricanes in Florida.

The folks at some of our larger public companies have material at their counters that they give out to customers. Insurance companies do the same.

HC: What are the secrets to keeping contents accessible or within fire code?

Mike: There are certain things we don’t allow on the premises, and that includes chemicals and solvents, anything that’s flammable. Almost every facility has a sheet of rules that they pass out to the consumer when you check in. If we find that you have them in there, you’re going to get bounced.

HC: What are the most creative uses of storage units you’ve heard of?

Mike: Nowadays, the owners are getting into more sophisticated storage. We have climate-controlled storage now. Up north, it’s heated in the winter. In the South, it’s air conditioned in the summer. We have wine storage now. We keep the wine storage lockers at 55 to 57 degrees. A lot of specialty types of storage are starting to emerge.

HC: I saw a company online that delivers an empty unit to the renter’s door. The renter packs it up and the company hauls it away for storage.

Mike: We don’t refer to that as self storage. That’s known as “personal, on-demand” storage. There’s a problem with that. A lot of zoning laws in communities do not allow you to park a container like that in your driveway overnight, let alone for a week, especially in your upscale communities.

HC: Companies that provide this wouldn’t necessarily be part of your association, then?

Mike: No.

HC: Are there any other innovations in the industry that renters would want to know about?

Mike: Some of the greatest companies of all time started in somebody’s garage. What we find is a lot of people are using their self storage lockers and garage units as a place to start a business. The problem with that is the federal government has all these rules and regulations, which means you’ve got to have restrooms, you’ve got to have this, you’ve got to have that.

So what a lot of storage people are starting to do is set up what we call “entrepreneurial centers,” where in the middle we have the restrooms and all the things that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) requires of a business, that they can share in a common area. But they each have their own little garage units that they can use for their businesses. They may be an antiques business, or that sort of thing.

As you might expect, in this day of homeland security concerns, one of the biggest issues that we have to deal with is knowing who our customer is. We don’t want to be renting our storage units to Osama bin Ladin. With that in mind, the Self Storage Association has started a new program that is known as SSA Countermeasures. It is an online program, so that when somebody comes to the counter, we can instantly verify a customer’s ID. We check on their bankruptcy record. We check on their credit score, and then we check on their criminal background record. All this is done in eight-tenths of a second. We can tell a customer if we can rent to them right away.

If the owner does not want to rent to somebody who has a felony record, then we’ve got a right not to rent to that individual. Or if they are on a terrorism watch list, we have the right to say no. Because once we rent that storage unit to a customer, it becomes that customer’s castle. You can’t get in there without a search warrant.

HC: Do you have tools to help a customer determine the number of cubic feet they’ll need?

Mike: Usually people have a pretty good feel for their garage. If they are filling up what is a space for one automobile, they’re probably be looking at a ten by ten. For two automobiles, it’s probably a ten by 20 that they need.


Michael Scanlon, Jr., is president and CEO of the Self Storage Association, a not-for-profit association of the self storage industry.