Summer is officially here and, as we mentioned, it’s the peak moving season in Oklahoma. Depending on how you look at it, you couldn’t ask for better (or worse) weather for moving everything you own, whether it’s across the state or just across town. Sure, it’s hot, humid, and sunny, but all those boxes and pieces of furniture aren’t going to move themselves. Take some advice from the experts in public storage in Lawton, OK: We’ll show you how moving and storage during the summer isn’t too hard if you keep your cool.
Get an Early Start. One of the biggest dangers when you’re moving during the summer is heat exhaustion. You can help avoid it by getting an early start, since the weather is cooler first thing in the morning. It doesn’t hurt to get an early start on packing and staging, either, so you’re not doing everything the day of your move.
Play It Cool. Maybe it goes without saying, but don’t wear sweatpants on a hot summer day when you’ll be moving. Lightweight, cool clothes will help keep your temperature down.
Stay Hydrated. If you wanna keep your cool and avoid heat exhaustion, it’s vital that you drink plenty of water and avoid consuming too many caffeinated drinks.
Plan Your Move Around the Heat. Keeping yourself safe from the worst effects of summer weather is the most important thing, but you’ll also want to plan your move so that your stuff doesn’t get melted or otherwise damaged. Make sure anything that’s going into a hot moving truck can handle some time in the heat, and pack electronics separately to avoid damage.
Keep an Eye on Kids and Pets. You’re not the only one who will be involved in the move, either. Your kids and pets can get overheated just as easily as you can, whether they’re helping or just trying to stay out of the way. If you don’t want them underfoot, make sure they have someplace where they can go that’s air conditioned. You might even consider boarding your pets for a few days, which can make things easier on them and on you.
Cool Things Down. Make sure the utilities are turned on at your new place before you move in, especially if you’re moving in the midst of a heat wave. Set up some fans immediately and crank the air conditioner before you even get there, if possible, so that the new house is as cool as it can be when you’re hauling all those boxes in.
Have a Cool Backup Plan. When you’re moving, it’s always a good idea to have a backup plan. If something goes wrong and you need extra time or can’t fit everything in the new place after all, it’s good to have a climate controlled place where you can keep it until things settle down. That’s where public storage in Lawton comes in. We live in a hot and humid area, and leaving things like musical instruments, antiques, artwork, documents, photographs, furniture, and countless other items in the summer heat is often a worst-case scenario.
Fortunately, whatever you need for your move, from packing supplies and moving boxes to climate controlled storage, we’ve got you covered at Storage ‘R’ Us in Lawton – or at any of our other convenient locations in Chickasha, Duncan, Moore, Newcastle, and Norman.
People often ask how secure their belongings really are in self storage. It’s a great question, especially if you’re thinking of storing your stuff for any length of time. The answer to that question has two parts. First, you’ll need to find out about the premise security employed by your self storage provider. The second part is really up to you.
Let’s talk about that first part for a moment. When you bring your stuff to one of our eight public storage locations in Lawton, Duncan, Chickasha, Norman, Newcastle, or Moore, Storage ‘R’ Us does everything in our power to keep it safe. That means employing 24-hour video surveillance using digitally recorded cameras, security lighting all over the property, computer-controlled access, fenced and walled perimeters, electronic gate access for those who need to get to their stuff overnight, on-site management, and more. These are all premise security features that you’ll find at the best self storage locations, including those managed by Storage ‘R’ Us.
At the end of the day, though, there’s only so much that your self storage provider can do. The rest is up to you. Is your stuff packed securely? Is it protected with a good lock? Is it insured? These are all things that you can do to help keep your stuff as secure as possible when you’re putting it into Lawton storage. After all, “secure” means more than just protected from theft. It means that your objects are stored in such a way that they won’t become damaged or degraded over time, too.
Here are some tips on how to use self storage so that your items are as secure as possible.
Keep the Storage Office Number Handy. In the old days, we had a list of important numbers tacked up by the phone. These days, we usually keep those numbers in our phones themselves. Wherever you keep that list of numbers, though, make sure that you can call the storage facility quickly and easily so you can get help when you need it.
Pack Wisely. Heavier and bigger items go on the bottom. Fill boxes with similar stuff. Wrap breakable things in protective cushioning. Employ garment boxes or other storage solutions as needed. Packing your stuff securely will help prevent it from becoming damaged when it’s being moved or when you need to get something out of storage.
Elevate Your Stored Items. Pallets can help keep your belongings up off the floor, which helps to protect them against moisture and pests. They’ll also be easier to reach when you need something.
Limit Who Has Access. Good storage companies provide premise security, but ultimately, you decide who has access to your stuff. Limit access to close family members and trusted friends. If you’re using your Lawton storage unit for your business, only a select few employees should be authorized to access it.
Rent a Climate Controlled Self Storage Unit. The weather may be a bigger threat to your belongings than any burglar or vandal. Heat and humidity can damage everything from papers to wood furniture to electronics and beyond. Climate controlled self storage helps keep your items safe from the seasons.
Choose a Self Storage Company with Security in Place. When you’re looking for public storage in Lawton, ask questions about security. Walk the property line. Make sure that you’re going with a reliable facility that takes premise security seriously.
Visit Your Storage Unit Often. Even if you’re planning to store stuff long-term, you should come by your storage unit frequently just to make sure that everything is still okay. Only you have the ability to enter your storage unit! Let the on-site manager know immediately about any problems or concerns.
Keep Pests Out. Don’t store open food items or other things that might draw pests, and keep space between your items and the outside walls of your unit to discourage (very small) unwanted visitors.
Know What NOT to Store. We just mentioned open or perishable food, but there are a few other things that are actually dangerous to keep in your Lawton storage unit: hazardous materials, guns and ammo, plants, animals, yourself or other people, and so on.
Know How to Prepare Certain Items for Storage. Some things that can be stored should be properly prepared first. Drain the gas from any small engines like the ones in lawnmowers or leaf blowers. Take batteries out of electronics. We’ve even provided a whole checklist for how to get larger vehicles ready for long-term storage.
Buy a Good Padlock. Think about it: If you were keeping all this stuff on your front porch, you’d probably put it in a box with a good padlock, right? The same goes for your storage unit. Padlocks are typically available at your storage facility, so just ask!
Keep a Record of What You Have in Storage. There are a lot of good reasons to keep a record of what you’ve put into self storage. For one thing, it makes it easy to find something when you need it. It’s also a good precaution in the event of a worst-case scenario such as a tornado hitting the facility.
Get to Know Your Storage Company. Don’t be a stranger. At Storage ‘R’ Us, we’re here to help. It also pays to learn the ins and outs of how your storage company operates and to make sure that they offer things like 24/7 access so you can get your stuff whenever you need it. And it’s a good idea to follow your storage company on social media so you can get quick updates on specials, news, or any changes.
Subscribe to Auto Pay. You probably didn’t think about this hazard to your belongings: Forgetting to make a payment on time can put your stuff at risk. Subscribing to auto pay helps to take that worry off your mind and helps ensure that your fee is paid every time.
Keep Your Personal Info Updated. It should be easy for your storage company to contact you for any reason. Got a new phone? Make sure they’ve got the number. Change your address? Pass that along, too. And be sure that the credit card you set up with your auto pay is still current.
Buy Insurance for Your Stored Items. No matter how careful you or your storage company are, there are some things that no one can prevent, such as that tornado we mentioned earlier. In the event of something like that, you’ll be glad that all your items are insured.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know how secure your belongings are in storage, but the answer to that question depends a lot on you! Fortunately, at Storage ‘R’ Us, we’re here to help! Our blog is full of tips to help you get the most out of your storage experience, so stay tuned! And if you have any questions, come visit us at any of our locations offering reliable, secure public storage in Lawton, Duncan, Moore, Chickasha, Newcastle, or Norman, OK.
These days, organizing your home, your life, and your living space are hot topics among housekeeping pros, life hackers, home improvement blogs and TV shows, and style icons. And why not? Good organization can help improve day-to-day productivity, reduce clutter, and even save money! There’s no shortage of home organizing tips online, so we’ll save the advice for the pros, but we will give you a few examples of how public self storage in Lawton or anyplace else can help cut down on clutter and make organizing your life so much simpler!
When it comes to organizing your home, one of the biggest challenges comes from furniture. Furniture takes up a lot of space. It can be bulky and tough to move, and sometimes, let’s face it, it’s unnecessary. Maybe you needed that huge couch when your kids were still at home, but now that they’ve moved out, it’s just taking up space that could be put to better use.
If you subscribe to the organizational concept of feng shui, you know that the goal is to create space in each room, not to fill the space unnecessarily. If your living room is jammed with sofas, recliners, end tables, entertainment centers, lamps, and more, you may find that you don’t have the space left to do much living in your living room After all, your house is a home, not a furniture showcase.
Rearranging any room that’s home to big furniture can be a real trick, though. Where does that furniture go when you’re not using it? This is where self storage comes in. You can keep furniture that you’re not using in self storage just long enough to clean and rearrange a room, or you can store it long-term. This applies to more than just living room furniture, too. You can store chests of drawers, dining tables, or even mattresses. Climate-controlled self storage in Duncan, Lawton, Moore, Chickasha, Newcastle, or beyond can keep your furniture safe and sound until the day you need it again.
Let’s face it, we all have some boxes of junk lying around the house. Some of us have more than a few of them. They range from old clothes to children’s toys to textbooks from college to DVDs and video games that we no longer watch or play but might someday to keepsakes that we plan to put on a shelf somewhere but probably never will. They take up space in our closets, in our attics and basements, in our garages and storage sheds. They contain everything that we once treasured but now no longer need yet may not quite be able to part with.
Think about your own home and how many boxes you might have in one place or another. Now think of how much space you could save by simply moving all those boxes to someplace outside the house, such as self storage in Moore, Lawton, Chickasha, Duncan, or Newcastle.
Sure, we all love gadgets! Chances are, we all probably have more of them than we even realize. Given that phones, tablets, computers, gaming systems, and everything else tend to always have a newer, shinier version coming out, it can be pretty easy to build up a backlog of old cell phones, MP3 players, computer equipment, printers, DVD players, and lots more that we no longer use. Even kitchen gadgets can end up sitting in the bottom of the pantry gathering dust.
Whatever kinds of gadgets you have around the house, you may not quite be ready to part ways with them. Maybe they have a component that you might need for some future gadget—a charging cable or headphones that still work—or maybe you just never know when you’re going to want to try out that Zune again. (We hear it’s what everybody’s listening to on Earth nowadays.) They won’t do you any good if they’re scattered throughout your house, though. Box up those old electronics and put them all in one spot, where they’re easy to find if you do want them. And climate-controlled self storage is a great spot for them!
As any parent knows, every toy, every art project, every Halloween costume may be a remembrance of some special time in your child’s life, which can make it difficult to let these things go, even long after your kids outgrow them. Maybe you are planning to hand them down to the grandkids, or maybe you just want to keep them around for their power to stir memories.
Whatever the case, all of that castoff kids’ stuff can accumulate over time, leading to lots of piles of boxes filled with things that you may treasure but probably won’t ever use. What’s the solution? Why not try public storage in Lawton, Oklahoma? Climate-controlled self-storage can be especially useful for those old art projects, band instruments, and other treasured keepsakes until it’s time to bring them out again.
Even when kids grow up and move out and you’re left with an empty nest, you probably still find yourself storing some of their stuff in your basement, attic, and garage. Of course, your kids have every intention of taking all those boxes with them once they get settled into a big enough home of their own—and maybe someday they will—but in the meantime, if you want to organize, downsize, and de-clutter, you can always find a place for those things in self storage near Fort Sill or elsewhere until your kids are ready to take them off your hands.
With all the stuff we’ve already mentioned taking up space in your garage, you might not even have room in there for your cars, right? But boxes and furniture aren’t the only types of clutter we have to consider. Everything from RVs to motorcycles to trailers and boats take up space in your driveway or backyard, and it’s not like you can just put them in a box and stick them up in the attic. We’ve written before about how self storage for vehicles can be a blessing for homeowners, but you also need storage space for more than just the vehicles themselves. Think about all the accessories that go with them. They also occupy a lot of space that you could free up by taking advantage of vehicle self storage in Lawton, Moore, Duncan, Chickasha, or Newcastle.
Whether you’re trying to organize your life or just looking for a little extra space, public storage in Oklahoma can be a HUGE resource. We provide solutions for everyone from military families who are looking for self storage near Fort Sill to college students who just need a place to keep their stuff during summer break to those needing specialty vehicle storage for their boats, RVs, and more.
Whatever you want from self storage in Moore, Lawton, Duncan, Chickasha, or Newcastle, we’ve got you covered at Storage ‘R’ Us!
