1. Is the storage fenced in?

Answer: Yes, The storage facility is fenced in and is gated and locked overnight. The buildings all have lighting systems and the units are well illuminated.

2. Do we provide a lock?

Answer: No. We recommend a heavy duty case hardened lock and we have them available for purchase. A self storage, as we noted in Airport Road Self Storage on Insurance, is not responsible for the goods of the consumer, but owns a safe and well-kept facility for consumers to store their goods. It is best that no one has a key to the unit except for the consumer. We recommend the hardened case lock because bolt cutters or hacksaws won’t be enough to cut through the extra-tough shackle (the U-shape).

3. What are the hours?

Answer: This self-storage facility is open from seven in the morning to seven at night seven days a week. We pride ourselves on being available to our customers over the weekend. When the inevitable strikes, and suddenly there are more belongings than space to bring them with or put them away, you can count on Airport Road Self Storage to have a solution.

If you have any questions about our availability, or really anything that comes to mind, please don’t hesitate to contact us: (360) 460-8333. We appreciate our customers and look forward to the opportunity to do business with future customers. We rent seven days a week and on the weekends by appointment.

Do drop by the Airport Road Self Storage and speak with managers Judy and Brian Petersen or call our self-storage resource, Allison, at (360) 460-4551 for deals in the final months of the year.

Students heading to university for the first time rarely plan to bring all the accumulated goods of their years in high school, and parents probably don’t want those piles of neatly boxes, or half-zipped duffel bags, or hasty plastic bags, or heaps of clothes  in the living areas of the house.

A self storage facility like Airport Road is an excellent way to make that extra room in the house become re-available. A small storage space nicely manages the students belongings in a single place for their return home when summer rolls back around.

There is nothing new about storing things.  Certainly that must be one of humanity’s oldest professions.  Businesses and commercial trading need enclosed places to keep their goods.  That is what a warehouse does.  It ‘houses’ the merchants’  ‘wares’. Along with this practice grew the idea that the owner of the warehouse would not only store the wares but also ‘keep’ the wares; he would ensure the safekeeping of these things along with their storage.  Commercial leases are signed with this intent. The newer concept is private individuals renting smaller spaces from the facility-or warehouse-owners for household needs.

I have been told the legal term for this concept is embailment.  The idea behind the term is that if someone is holding your property, they must return it or its worth.  The concept should ring a bell even if the term sounds strange; for example: a bailiff in court keeps the arraigned; a judge can grant terms of bail to ensure the accused will not flee. In the case of storage, an embailment would mean that the storage keeper would hold responsibility for your goods and their worth.

The concept of a ministorage is fairly new, however, the first building probably less than fifty years old and as such is still an evolving idea.  It is the potential facility for private individuals to store household goods from the introductory paragraph.  Its purpose is to meet the needs of households in dealing with the ‘stuff’ that accumulates; you know, the belongings left to us by our kids when they leave the house, or unused by elderly folks as they downsize in life.  It is one way to clean out the garage so you can make a place for your car, or maybe even a way to get the spare bedroom back. Such uses have made the ministorage a successful concept.

Unlike self storages, like Airport Road Self Storage, ministorages or miniwarehouses are places of embailment.  Even though many self storages use names like Secure Storage, Safe Storage, All Safe Storage and similar words that claim security, unless they have a special type of legal contract they are not places that will guarantee the safety of your goods. It is a common misconception.  People renting space for storage should realize when they are entering into a self storage agreement.  That is a more representative term.

So what do self storages do anyway? It really seems to come down to three commitments. The facility agrees to provide a defined, enclosed space (walls and a roof), a working door and a working lock arrangement. Beyond this commitment it is the responsibility of the renter to take care of his personal property.  Other benefits provided are at the discretion of the facility, and of course many facilities offer a variety of enticements, but as long as it is a self storage facility all the other is optional.  That is the essence of self storage concept.  It is much different than the age-old warehouse idea.

Thinking about what the term Self Storage refers to may raise more questions:  What about insurance? What about damage and theft and other storage hazards?  A discussion of these risks will come later!

The storage facility under the flag

Airport Road Self Storage on Insurance

The concept of insurance has evolved to where it is one of the more effective ways to manage important parts of life-especially business life.  There are a number of issues that arise: risk, loss, liability, which lead to necessary insurances. Risk is one part of business-life that everyone involved has to deal with.  It is inescapable. What does risk mean in the Self Storage business?

Well there are at least two sides.  There is the facility itself, whether referred to as a mini-warehouse, mini-storage or the more correct self storage.  Also there is the renter or person storing their personal property: all the stuff that accumulates.  The insurance needed is different in each of these two sides.

The owner of the facility needs to insure against loss, or damage, to the facility. Although the loss rates for storage facilities are universally low, the investment is large and must be protected.  In most cases the owner has made this his life’s work and quite often has used funds from a bank loan to construct the facility.  The bank also needs to protect against the risk of losing its investment.

So facilities are insured against fire, floods, vandalism, earthquakes, and now even Acts of Terrorism.  Any business, storage facilities included, also must be insured for liability. Unfortunately bad things can happen to nice people every day.  People can fall or get otherwise injured and the facility owner needs to plan for this type of risk.  There are also other needs such as loss of income, but loss and liability are the bigger risks .

What about insurance for the self- storage renter?  The renter needs to insure against the loss or damage to the personal property he is storing.  That is the renter’s responsibility in a self storage facility. The renter has little risk of liability so that is not a concern, but if the renter values his personal property then the renter must insure his property against loss.   The facility is not responsible for personal goods.  That is why it is a self storage facility and not a warehouse.  This is an important difference and often misunderstood.  It isn’t really illogical, and can be simply explained.

Think for a moment about what happens in an apartment building.  Lots of people rent an apartment.  Who insures your property in your apartment?  It is not the apartment owner.  It is the renter.  So you buy renters insurance or personal property insurance.  It’s not any different from self storage.  Another issue to consider is that the storage facility owner and the apartment owner have no idea what the renters will put in the apartment.  It could be almost anything and responsibility for it would put the facility owner at risk. Responsibility on the part of the owner would also create a hassle for renters because the facility owner would need to check each rented unit for undesirable usage.

The best option is for the renter to buy renters insurance or make sure with an insurance agent that renter’s homeowners insurance covers his personal property while it is stored outside the home.  I am told that homeowners’ insurance most often do but I am not an insurance agent. This is how the risk is managed in the self storage business.  The facility is covered by insurance and the facility owner and the renter have their own part to play.

Stay tuned as we share our values and tell our story!