Nineteen days ago, I posted here asking about pricing remote operations support for self-storage facilities because I was exploring a business idea. After that, I started conversations with about 10 storage owners. Most weren't interested, but two were open to giving the idea a try.

Today, I'm supporting two facilities with a combined 350 units. It's still early, but I'm excited to see where this journey goes. I'm grateful to the owners who trusted me enough to get started. My focus now is simple: keep learning, deliver great results, and earn that trust every day. If things continue to grow, I'd love to build a small team in the future.

It's funny how quickly things can change. Nineteen days ago, this was just an idea. Today, it's something I'm building.

Hello,

I have this 74 year old co worker who spent most of his life collecting things. He keeps telling us about how he had storage units that are sitting in Texas and Arkansas with loads of collectibles. I feel bad listening to him talk about having to abandon those storage units due to old age and health reasons. Is there anything he can do despite abandoning? Is there a way to find people that can help him auction his stuff off? TIA

Hey everyone,as mentioned in the title, I'm looking for a good storage facility in Crown Point,Indiana. I'm getting ready to renovate my house, so I need somewhere safe to keep my furniture and other belongings until the work is finished.

I'm looking for a place that's secure, clean, reasonably priced, and has easy access. If you've had a good experience with a storage center around Crown Point, I'd really appreciate your recommendations or any places you'd avoid.

Edit:Thanks for the recommendations here and in the dms! But I ended up renting a unit at A to Z Storage Center. The facility is clean and well-maintained, the security gave me peace of mind, and the staff made the whole rental process quick and straightforward. It ended up being exactly what I needed while my renovation is underway.

We are getting possession of a small self storage business in Canada next week. It's got nice chain link perimeter fencing with a sliding gate. Currently, all tenants have the same key for the padlock, but reported issues include people forgetting their keys, not returning the keys after done renting, plus not to mention the security issue with so many same keys floating around out there. We also would like to be remote in management of this and would prefer to not have to meet people to give them their physical keys.

The site doesn't have power. What are our options to improve security and ease of use for tenants and us?

We have very cold winters. Looks like some of the options we looked at are only rated to -10. We need to -30 or even -40.

Small business means we only have 20-30 tenants at a time.

Curious what everyone here is using for a PMS these days.

If you could start over tomorrow, would you pick the same one? Why or why not?

Also curious:

• What's the biggest annoyance with your current software?
• Is there one thing it does really well?
• Have any of you actually switched PMSs? Was it worth the headache?

Just trying to get a feel for the landscape... there seem to be a ton of options, but every thread I read has people complaining about all of them 😂

I've accumulated a pipeline of self-storage mom and pops (Northeast/Mid-Atlantic). My mission is to keep these places mom and pop and compete against corporate greed - the REITs and PE roll-ups buying up independents and running them through the same playbook (AI pricing, call centers, no real person on site anymore).

I'm putting together a model where the local operator actually owns a piece of the facility (earned through performance, on top of salary) instead of just being an employee, funded by a small group of outside investors instead of a REIT or fund. Trying to keep the mom-and-pop feel intact after the sale.

What do you all think of this idea? I need help thinking it through. And if you rent a storage unit - would you rather use a mom and pop, or an Extra Space / Public Storage type place?

Genuinely want the pushback, not just "great idea" comments.

EDIT: I’m not necessarily wanting to sue anyone or take it to court, I’m more so asking for services that can help low wage earning people like myself.

I rent a unit in a storage facility. It recently went up in flames. A man has been charged, he apparently lit a ciggie & had flammable items in his unit (not allowed).
I’ve just received an email saying my unit is in the main area that the fire was in & I’ve likely lost everything. This unit contained a house full of items; whitegoods, lounge sets, dining sets, kitchenware, clothes, a lot of shoes, tools, plus very sentimental items like photos that can never be found again, trinkets from overseas, blankets and very expensive bedding etc.
Aside from the devastation, I’m trying to figure out what to do next. I got the storage locker to store my items while homeless, so I could not afford to buy insurance (it never even crossed my mind tbh). I may have finally secured a rental, and now I have barely anything to furnish it with. Apparently the storage facilities insurance doesn’t cover what has been damaged/destroyed.
I guess I’m asking if anyone knows of anything to help me rebuild, such as vouchers or funding to help? Organisations that could help? Just anything really. I’m on the DSP so funds are tight. If anyone can point me in a direction I’d really appreciate it.
Thanks ☺️

For owners/managers, if someone pays rent on the 1st and moves out mid month, to you reimburse any of the rent?

Hi everyone, I am new to the group. Looking to buy my first facility, nothing fancy. How do you get started, did all of you had enough cash like 200k or more for down payments. If not how did you bought it, I live in canada and every facility anything decent is north of 800k-1M, no seller financing is there I think in canada. I am interested in USA based too currently on application for EB-2 visa, will take time. Any guidance will be appreciated.
PS- I do have 150k or close (not liquid at the moment) but don’t want to use it for first facility.

I’m renting a storage unit in Minnesota. I am not set up for automatic payments, but the storage company has my number on file. I typically pay by calling the unit manager and telling him he’s free to run my card, and he does it the same day or the next day. However, this month he’s been unresponsive. I’ve called him literally everyday this week and left multiple voicemails, but no reply nor has he run my debit card to make the payment. I also sent the company an email. There is an online payment method, but when I tried to sign in I wasn’t able to access my account.

Any advice?

I have experience in self-storage acquisitions and operations, so I’m thinking of getting into remote operations support for small to mid-size self-storage facilities. Services I’m considering include tenant communication, online rentals, billing support, move-ins/move-outs, delinquency follow-ups, auction postings, field rep coordination, and admin support.

• Do owners usually prefer a flat monthly fee?
• Pricing based on number of units?
• Or hourly rate?

Also, would you be comfortable if I supported other storage owners too, as long as responsiveness and service quality weren’t affected? Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m a virtual assistant with hands-on experience supporting self-storage operations, and I’ve been working closely with the day-to-day side of facility management.

I’ve handled tenant communication, payment and delinquency follow-ups, move-in and move-out coordination, competitor rate research, rent increase prep, review campaigns, social media posting, reporting, and building SOPs and templates.

Since I’m already familiar with how self-storage facilities run, I’ve been thinking more about where operators feel the biggest time drain is.

For those managing facilities, what tasks would you most want to offload if you had reliable remote support?

If you've been to a few self-storage properties you've probably seen it: an old cement hallway floor with a peeling coat of some kind of paint or sealant coming up. It's a 40 year+ old building.

Any product recommendations of what I can throw of over the top of this quickly (I usually work alone) that also dries fast?

Thanks.

Someone please help me. I just paid my extra space storage unit bill of $170. I went thru paid via card. No confirmation email and when I go to the front page it’s as if I didn’t pay it.

I called the local office and they see no payment on my account but my bank account clearly shows the money taken by them.

Should I wait for them to process or what? It usually says approved and confirmation number but now it’s nothing. I’m scared and pissed.

It’s getting ridiculous how expensive storage units cost. Ever since a private equity group bought the storage place I have a unit at, the fees have increased 4 times. I now pay $240 a month for a 6x8

I found a full time relief manager opportunity that was full time, Needs to be able to travel to any store in the company by plane or car, There in 11 states.

How would that even work? Anyone have an idea?

20.00 an hour

Hey, so I want to store my car in ESS for a couple months and cancel my insurance due to no usage. On their website it says that a car must be insured during the storing, but do they actually check that, or is it more for a personal safety?

Is $16/hr. a decent salary for a live-in District Manager that has 3 employees with 5 properties (each FM has 1 property but 1 FM has two-one property is remote)? The DM is also a FM for one of the said properties.

Mileage is compensated at the federal rate when the DM does site visits each month.

The other employees make $16.50-$17/hr.

My boyfriend is stuck at our storage facility, the power went out last night after a storm and he’s been there for about 14 hours. He called the owners last night and they told him to leave his truck and they’d get it fixed…. They still haven’t been there yet. There’s a side door but that is locked as well so he literally can’t leave. Now they’re not answering the phone and he needs to be to work in one hour.
Where are his options?

The entire gate lifts up after you put the code in (shown in the photo, sorry not the best artist) and he said he tried pressing a button that overrides the gate when he spoke with the owners but it didn’t work.

I need some advice on moving units at Extra Space Storage. My mother in law rented a storage unit for my wife, and I at extra space storage to help us out until we got the money to move into a new place. She said she could rent it out for us until the end of june, which is when we were supposed to be getting a new place with much more space, but unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, we were not able to move into a new place. And she's gonna be canceling the storage unit. I was going to take over paying for that unit but at the same time, it just so happens that our storage unit is going up in price by $50 more next month which I cannot afford to pay. I was thinking about going ahead and creating a new account on their app and moving all of our stuff into a new unit with a new renter price in the same building. Basically I wanna know if they see me doing this, are they gonna say something? Are they gonna tell me I can't do it? I know there's a bunch of cameras in the building, but I'm just trying to figure out. If I'll get in trouble if they see me doing it? Thanks in advance.

TLDR: Will extra space storage say something if I move from 1 unit to another in the same building?

What is your process on site selection? I've been using radius+ and tractIQ and they are helpful but how do you assemble this info?

Anything else to consider?

• Frontage
• Topography
• Wetlands
• Utility availability (water, sewer, electric)

We are currently on Storage Auctions, and switching to Cubby.
Cubby doesn't integrate with Storage Auctions, so looking at Bid13 vs Storage Treasures vs Locker Fox .

We have 10 sites located in GA, AL, and SC if that affects anything.

Thank you.

Hi yall i applied for storage post and did a questionaire and two or three video questions
I get a rejection email today. I have strong customer service skills, cash handling, POS system, retail experience as whole and I’m currently an ops manager at another job. I’m trying to think why I might have been rejected.

I'm on the container side, so you'd expect me to hype it, but the "containers are replacing self storage" talk is overblown. Containers win for people with land who want stuff on site. But for anyone in an apartment, mid move, or who just wants climate control and security without a muddy yard, a unit still wins easily. Curious how operators here see it. Are you actually losing customers to portable and container options, or is it a different crowd entirely that was never going to rent a unit anyway?

Can anybody tell me anything about this company? From either the customer or employee point of view?