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October 25, 2018

3 Steps to Organize Your Storage Unit



Storage units are an extension of your home. Sometimes families and situations grow faster than expectations, and storage units provide the added space that can account for such scenarios. However, what good is extra space if you can’t find anything in it? Say, for example, that hurricane season is about to begin and most of your supplies are in storage. If you do not remember where to look and your boxes are not labeled, you may find yourself wasting several hours moving items around and opening boxes to check the contents. When a person invests the time in organizing items properly and knows their exact location, the space becomes an area that is efficient and serves a purpose. Otherwise, it is just clutter. Worst off, if the location of the storage units is not convenient, this just adds to the list of problems. Before you put your items in storage, be sure to find affordable, and more importantly, secure storage units near you to avoid the hassle of long drives just to access to your stuff.



Many television shows, such as Storage Wars, run on the premise that potential buyers bid on storage units that people abandon. These are auctioned off to buyers in search of valuable items that storage space renters have either forgotten about or no longer care for. People may have different reasons for abandoning their items in a unit and forgoing their rights to such items. Among these reasons are no longer viewing the items as worth the storage costs or not being able to afford to rent the unit. However, many simply forget what is in storage because they never kept a record or organized the items in a way for them to be easily identifiable. These problems can be avoided by doing a better job of organizing.

The first aspect to consider is storage materials. For example, when packing, avoid using garbage bags. These can tear rather easily and are difficult to sort through. They can also be cumbersome to move and make a mess when picking through items. Most of the time, you will need to empty the bag contents to find anything inside of it. Furthermore, the type of plastic used can also trap moisture, creating a perfect environment for mildew and ruining the items being stored. The idea of storing items is to keep them protected, so opt for plastic bins or durable cardboard boxes.  Although these may require an investment, the cost of purchasing boxes or bins is relatively low and is a sure way of protecting your possessions.

Another aspect that people looking to rent a storage unit need to consider is tracking the items being stored. The idea is to be able to find what you need quickly, and this is better achieved by sorting, storing, and labeling the boxes or bins. Although a visual labeling system provides a quick means of identifying content, categorizing and creating a list that you can access later will give enough specificity to improve the efficiency of the search. For example, create general categories such as kitchenware, hardware, master bedroom, and patio, among others. Create these based on needs and preferences.

If using multiple boxes for a category, also place a number next to it so that the box label is unique. Write down or use a spreadsheet to identify the box and the contents. When looking an item up, it will be a matter of sifting through the spreadsheet file. Lastly, store the items so that the heavier ones are on the bottom. Organize them in the storage unit so that the same categories are in one area and so that the numbering is in order. For even easier access, place the boxes so that the labels are in alphabetical order.

Although these steps may seem like additional work, the process of organizing will save a lot of time when trying to access possessions later.



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