Better think twice before you sign a rental agreement at a self-storage facility.
If you or someone you know is planning to use a self-storage facility . . . or, maybe you already have stuff at one, you should read this.
My wife and I needed to store some expensive furniture, paintings and antiques for awhile during a recent move. We chose Public Storage because they are a well-known, establised national company but our story pertains to all self-storage companies.
One night we got a call from the site manager that a pipe had broken in the sprinkler system in our unit and the unit was filling with water. We rushed down as fast as we could and arrived just after they had cut the lock on the unit and allowed the fire department and the sprinkler company to access our unit, shut off the sprinkler etc. Since it was late, we got another lock and went home.
The next two and one-half days were spent moving our stuff from one unit to another so they could fix the pipe and get our stuff into a dry unit. We were treated by everyone from Public Storage (all the way from the site manager to the regional manager to the corporate vp in California) as if it was our problem and our fault. We received absolutely no help or assistance until I called my attorney, at which time they gave us boxes to transfer our stuff and a unit to do the work of taking our stuff out of soaking wet boxes and rewrapping it.
This photo shows just a small portion of the items that were lost as a result of the broken pipe in our 10' x 30' storage unit at Public Storage in Bridgewater, New Jersey.
As it turns out, we had $8200 in damaged furniture and paintings as a result of the flood. Not to mention, the $600 we had to pay a professional moving company to move the furnture to the new unit. And, the three days I lost from work.
Public Storage maintained they had no responsiblity and I sued them in civil court. Long story short . . . we lost. They sent a Partner from the largest law firm in NJ to defend against my complaint. I choose not to pay the $2500 retainer for a lawyer (although I had some excellent coaching by a local attorney for free) so I acted as my own attorney. I must say the coaching and my determination really helped since even the opposing counsel remarked how well prepared I was. Of course, what did that matter, I lost.
So, we were out $8800.00 plus all our time and personal expenses for meals, travel and the like. Oh, did I mention that this happened in February of this year on two of the coldest, windiest days of the year. They didn't even offer us a cup of coffee.
The reality is that when you sign a self-storage rental agreement, you allow the storage company to absolve themselves from absolutely all responsibility for your stuff including vandalism, fire, theft, flood, employee and management wrongdoing, everything! This happened in New Jersey but I would bet it's true in every state.
Now, some of you reading this may be saying why didn't we have insurance. The answer is that the most insurance anyone will give you for stuff in a storage facility is $5000. We had about $80,000 worth of goods in the unit so I figured why bother. Plus, as I found out while researching the court case, rental insurance would not have covered the loss by water.
The moral of the story is this . . . you better think twice before you sign a rental agreement at a self-storage facility.
Comments(1)