Self-Storage to the Rescue for Returning College Students

It’s that time of year again. School’s out for summer, and college kids are returning home with piles of dirty laundry and all the stuff that they cleaned out of their dorm rooms. The vast majority of college students live a sort of nomadic lifestyle, moving from one kind of campus housing to another during their college career, and shifting back home during the summer breaks. That’s why self-storage for college students can be such a lifesaver.

After all, if you’re a college student, your parents might not have kept space for all your stuff back home—and if you’re a parent, you might not want to deal with an entire dorm room’s worth of stuff suddenly reappearing in your house for a few months out of every year. Parents aren’t always crazy about the decorating choices their kids made for their dorm rooms, either, so a storage unit can be just what the doctor ordered. College students can use them to hold the things they’ll need when they head back to school, but that they don’t have a lot of use for while they’re at home, while parents can use them to shift hobby items or excess furniture out of the way while their kids are back for a few months.

Self-storage units are also perfect solutions for college students who’re studying abroad. Rather than moving everything back home, you can simply tuck it away in a secure self-storage facility and enjoy your trip, knowing that all your stuff will be waiting for you safe and sound when you get back. Self-storage for college students can also provide autonomy; you’re the only one who has access to your stuff, and you’re the one responsible for getting it in and out.

If you’re going to be using self-storage to keep some of your stuff this summer break, or if you’re the parent of a college student and are going to use self-storage as a way to help mitigate the chaos that having your kids suddenly back in the nest can cause, here are a few tips for storing common dorm items that can help make your self-storage experience more successful:

• Pack Carefully: The better your stuff is packed, the less room it’ll take up, the easier it’ll be to get to, and the simpler your job will be when it comes time to move it all back out at the end of the summer. Use packing and moving supplies from Storage ‘R’ Us, or plastic bins that you may have around your dorm room already, and try to pack like items with like, in order to make things easy to find.
• Defrost and Drain: Many college students use mini-fridges in their dorm rooms, and some even acquire their own AC units. If storing either, make sure that you defrost and drain them before storing to prevent mold and mildew, or damage to the electrical components.
• Share a Unit: To save money, consider splitting a unit with a roommate or someone else from college. In this case, it’s best to prepay for the whole summer in advance and split the cost evenly, so that there’s no opportunity for misunderstandings later. Also, color code or otherwise clearly mark your stuff so that it’s easy to tell which things belong to whom. 

The last thing you want to worry about as the school year winds down and summer starts up is what you’re going to be doing with all your stuff. Self-storage in Oklahoma can be the solution you need to stop worrying and enjoy your summer!