Posts from TalesFromSelfStorage

3 years ago – White Christmas for Liberia

A starving man gives thanks for even a banana leaf. The Pastor’s proverb

The Pastor’s wife peered through the storage facility office’s plate-glass windows into the swirling snow outside. She waited for the loading help to arrive. With the Pastor away, she was in charge. Without the Pastor’s presence, the helpers culled church members were not reliable. The ship date for the overseas container that they were filling from their storage unit was a few days away. She paced and fretted in the rental office, chatting nervously with the property’s manager.

Many additional factors served to increase her anxiety. The Pastor had left for Liberia, a country ripped asunder by a horrible war twenty years long with no end in sight. Back in her home, starvation reigned in the areas where their church worked. Though the container would be laden with vitally needed supplies, she would have liked to have more food to send.

Liberia, a dusty equatorial country, had been created as a colony for freed American slaves. These ‘repatriated’ freedmen and their descendants had ruled for many generations. Lately, the country had fallen into a degenerative state during a very long civil war.

The curious manager of the property engaged the Pastor’s wife in conversation about Liberia. This helped her to pass the time. She related her tale of fearful resourcefulness in a world almost beyond belief to him. She told her story matter of factly, no need to impress. The manager, who had only a vague interest in the place, listened politely. He had little to do as the snow fell.

The Pastor, a nondescript churchman, had rented a couple of storage units for donations. He was a mild, soft-spoken person who had an unusual feature: when he smiled, because of gaps in his top and bottom front teeth, a cross was revealed. The work of charity can be awkward. Often, payments for the storage unit were not always made on time. Because of this and the manager had many occasions to talk with the Pastor.

His country, whose infrastructure before the war was rudimentary, had lost all of it during the conflict. Basically, the so-called rebels, packs of wilding teenagers drunk on bloodlust and liquor, were recruited in this manner: “Would you like some work?” “Yes.” “You are now a rebel.”

The most extreme examples of this type of soldier were the troops of one, General Joshua Milton Blahyi, aka General Butt Naked. Butt Naked’s troops would liquor up, strip down to nothing and boots, don women’s hats and purses, and then raid a village. Hacking deaths and multiple rapes ensued. They were reputed to have played soccer with severed heads. Their pay – whatever they could rob from the villagers.

Consequently, anything for this ravaged country was a godsend. The storage unit and the containers were filled with clothing, housewares, and bicycles. The bicycles, a motley selection of discards, were the most prized. To the manager, the units appeared like garages filled with old stuff that needed a good burning.

The Liberians were assisted in this effort by a local suburban church that had sponsored many of the refugees. The elderly white-haired sedate church volunteers stood in stark contrast to the colorfully dressed and loud-talking exiles emanating from the Pastor’s church. Together they would fill the units and pack the containers. These kindly old men would go about their charity business with an air of bemused forbearance.

The Pastor’s wife related her story as she waited for her workers whose numbers varied now with their leader not around. On other days the manager had observed her with only a single helper, and help from the suburbs was an infrequent occurrence. She often looked into the snowy driveway as she talked.

To make her way to America from the homeland, she had to get to the seaport city of Buchanan from her base in the interior. No small feat as this journey was on foot through dangerous and hostile territory. Many ethnic areas had to be traversed. The slave descendants clustered around the capital Monrovia constitute only 5% of the population; fifteen other competing ethnicities make up the rest.

She found herself trapped in a town as rebel troops rampaged through. She hid in a room with some others and one corpse. By sheer luck, her group was not discovered by the drunken troops who sacked the house. As she made her way, she encountered what could loosely be called checkpoints. They were roadblocks that were bypassed with one bribe or another. In one area, she learned that she would be given a pass by placing limes in her baggage because that tribe considered limes to be a sign of evil and were afraid of them.

A couple of helpers arrived at the property. She sent them to the container. Beyond the windows, as she looked for more of them, the sky dimmed and the snow falling heavily in the shafts of bright streetlamps created an ethereal fog-like effect. She stopped talking. The manager glanced up from his desk and saw that tears streamed down her face. In the spectral light were 3 pickup trucks pulling flat trailers. The beds of the trucks and trailers were heaped high with twenty-five-pound bags of rice.

Rice. In America, an oft-scorned side dish. But as welcome to a starving man as a banana leaf. Thousands of meals rolled in with those trucks that Christmas Eve 2004. The old white dudes, along with a fair showing of Liberians who had straggled in, loaded the bags into the container. Afterward, they shook hands around and got back on the road in the snow to their church and warm holiday gatherings in the suburbs.

In the next year or so, things would lift in that war-torn country. The first elected woman president in Africa, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson, took office. She has a massive task ahead. Currently, there are 15,000 UN troops in the country, maintaining a tenuous order. Today, in Monrovia, there is still no reliable electricity and running water.

President Sirleaf-Johnson forges forward and stresses that improvement will require many small steps. Small things: such as a banana leaf, a banged-up bike, a cup of rice, an evening of straining and snow driving, the organizing of a motley crew, and the word of the Pastor that all of this matters.

(from Open Salon. 12/30/2009)

3 years ago – “That’s Not Even A F*cking Month’s Rent!”

A successful storage leasing consultant must possess many skills. At once you must be a pleasant phone salesperson, a gracious in-store host, a knowledgeable lock mechanic, and the one with the swiftest technique of scooping up a dead rodent. And you must be able to call deadbeat customers and ask them for money while maintaining a calm professional manner – this is the skill that will separate the pretenders from the contenders. It is the most challenging task for most newcomers – some use an empathetic yet persistent approach while some are a little edgier.

On a Friday afternoon in the early 2000s my assistant, Kathy*, and I plowed through the long list of delinquents, calling them and leaving messages for the most part. In those pre-smartphone days, messages were sort of a big deal and you had half a chance that someone might listen, maybe call back. The content might vary from the polite entreaty (me) to the more direct – “Hey, you need to come in and pay me!” (Kathy).

So there we were plugging away at the list. The mail carrier arrives. Kathy slices open the letters looking for checks. “Oh, Mr. Jones sent something in, finally!”, she says. Mr. Jones is a frequent flyer on Delinquency Airlines and is three months in arrears. As she reviews the enclosed payment from Jones, I’m waiting for the beep – usually a giggly family recitation of a line that rhymes with beep, an interminable favorite pop song, or the dreaded blah, blah, blah have a blessed day. Finally, I’ve come to the end of the intro, I’ve sucked in my breath ready to deliver. Kathy has read the amount on Jones’ check. I get the beep. At this exact moment Kathy loudly, scathingly exclaims, “THAT’S NOT EVEN A FUCKING MONTH’S RENT!.” I slam the phone knowing that some poor sap is going to come home and check messages, see where it’s from, and hear that.

Never heard from the affected customer. Maybe they skipped over it or, worried about pissing off Kathy, hustled their butt down to the site and paid up. As time went on the polite and persistent collection method seemed to be the most effective. As for the old-school direct “Pay me” tactics – well, that shit’s illegal.

*not her real name

3 years ago – “Well, I Guess I’m a Procrastinator”

Personal security is a significant part of any training in the field of customer service, especially if your occupation involves money and other valuables.

I worked for 7/11 Stores in the late 70s. They had extensive training in the area of robberies. They had consulted with a convicted robber to point out what they were doing wrong and how to practice the best prevention techniques. They showed scary videos during training. One strategy was to be very vigilant about guys in long coats who loitered in your store. My first shift, two young guys come in in long coats. They dallied in the grocery aisle – people don’t shop for groceries at 7/11; it’s mostly grab and go. They come to the counter. I can barely ring their stuff up as I nervously wait for the guns to come out from the folds of their coats. I’m sure I’m done for. But, I was greatly relieved that the only thing that emerged from a coat was a checkbook. It turns out, they’re roommates and don’t mind paying the high prices. And they’re the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.

A couple of decades later, I’m training to be a storage consultant. Like the 7/11 training, security is an emphasis; people have their lives in these units! One of the most effective security practices is the daily lock check. There are many reasons why the lock check is essential. As the name suggests, a review of the customers’ locks is a very effective way to ensure that there has been no tampering and that all the units are securely locked. One way of tampering with the locks back in the day- thieves would clip them with bolt cutters, replace the locks with their own, and come back to rob them when the manager was not around. For example, you might see a row of shiny new locks of the same brand.

About four months as a manager, I encountered an incident involving what I thought to be a tampered lock. Dear old Ruthie Ann K., who had moved in ten years ago, always came to the office to pay her rent with a check. This task took some time because she had difficulty in writing. We would exchange small chatter as she labored to fill it out. One day she asked if someone could cut her lock because it seemed her key wasn’t working. Oh no! I thought, reverting to the training – a thief cut it and replaced it with his own lock! It seems the passing of two decades hadn’t cured me of jumping to drastic conclusions.

I grabbed the bolt cutters, and with Ruthie in tow, went to her unit located a few feet from the office – it took us fifteen minutes to get there. I saw that the rusted lock had been there for years. Instead of realizing that the padlock had deteriorated due to lack of use, I’m thinking the thieves robbed her unit years ago. Now I get to be the bad guy who let it happen! As I cut the lock and prepared to open the door for her, crazy thoughts swirled around in my brain. So in this state of mind, I was not too surprised to see that the space was completely empty! Oh no, here it comes, She’s going to scold me, and I’ll have to write a report!

She looks into the unit and says in her shaky voice, “Well, I guess I’m a procrastinator.”

The back story comes out later. The County got after her for a cluttered apartment ten years ago, and that’s why she rented a storage unit. Apparently, she put them off for them for years until they went after her again. She wanted to know how much room she had left in the unit for this latest round of forced decluttering – well, all of it!

Maybe the lesson here is to not be so hasty in jumping to conclusions. Things aren’t always as bad as they seem at first. Take a cue from Ruthie – slow walk it; there’s plenty of time.

3 years ago – The Ballad Of Rory Rollins, Part 1

Some storage companies with reasoning locked into the need for ‘prima facie’ evidence require tenants to handwrite their name, address, and other information on a contract in addition to signing the lease. Since the advancements in technology, most firms will either have the customer input their data into a computer or have consultants do it and then affix the required signatures. Boring stuff, for sure, but necessary in our litigious world. By the late 90s, virtually all storage companies operated on computers. The first method, while the most substantial if a dispute goes to court, has a big flaw. The person who inputs the information into the computer must correctly read or interpret the writer’s handwriting. Like I said, dry stuff here, but let’s take a look at the case of Rory and Ronny Rollins.

Rory rented a unit from my predecessor at Tree Nut Storage in Northeast Minneapolis. Rory came from a long line of rebellious types, biker folk. Rory had a brother named Ronny. In my imagination, I see two bleary-eyed, dog-tired tykes munching potato chips circa midnight amid an endless round of bonfires, biker rallies, and rock-and-roll bars. I see them called over to pronounce their names to the endless merriment of Ma and Pa Rollins and chums. “Wowy Wowwins” or “Wonny Wowwins,” the boys would stammer, making Bear, Killer, and Gypsy choke on their shotgunned Budweisers. Consequently, neither Rory nor Ronny was prepared for the rigors of the education system. They probably did not excel in penmanship or any other subjects for that matter.

Rory’s scrawl was a hybrid of cursive and block printing. This may have caused him to extend the arm of the lowercase r of his first name – the arm was double the usual length and sort of wavered in the middle. The consultant, whom I referred to as The Corpse for her unique ability to not extend anything beyond the minimum needed to accomplish routine office duties, her lack of interest in outside tasks, and her vacant-eyed down in the mouth personality) read Rory as Ronny. An understandable but disastrous mistake.

For, you see, unbeknownst to The Corpse or myself, these lads Rory and Ronny as they grew up, developed an intense hatred for each other. A rivalry perhaps fueled by the late nights and frustrations foisted on them by Ma and Pa’s ridicule. The feud reached its zenith when one of them, during an argument, shot the other. The shooter, whom I presumed without evidence to be Rory, served time in Stillwater State Prison for this offense. These hard-scrabblers live on high wire easily triggered emotions. They value anonymity. Frequent relocations are necessary to stay one step ahead of The Man. A storage unit is a handy place to ‘store your shit’ when juggling stays with exes and stints in stir.

There is one constant in this gypsy peripatetic life – Ma. Ma might’ve lived a life that contributed to Father’s Day confusion and had an X-rated canon of youthful exploits. Still, she was always there at the principal’s office, the reform school admittance room, the ride home from rehab, and most prominently, the only person sitting on her son’s side of the adult courtroom no matter the crime. Ma’s address also was the alternate address required on most storage unit leases. This is the address where auction notices are sent in addition to the primary address, which is likely defunct three times over.

Invariably Rory defaulted on the unit, causing letters to be sent to both addresses. Because of The Corpse’s incompetence, those letters were mailed to Ronny Rollins, not Rory.

I can only imagine the scene where the letter addressed to Ronny Rollins arrived at the house of Ma Rollins. I see a jaded older woman sipping a cup of spiked coffee squinting at the official-looking legal letter we had sent per the storage lease terms. “Ronny,” she growls. “You got a fucking letter from the storage place.” “I ain’t got no storage unit,” grunts a sleepy Ronny who has taken shelter with Mama during a rough patch with wife #4. “Says right here, Ronny Rollins, that’s your fucking name, ain’t it?” snaps Ma. “Let me see that,” he growls. With a crinkled brow, Ronny plows through the stilted wording of the letter. He fumbles through what’s left of his memory cells until a glimmer of thought breaks through. He knows what the letter’s for and realizes – this is Rory’s storage shed!

3 years ago – The Ballad of Rory Rollins, Part 2

“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.” ― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

Ronny, a gruff burly 40ish dude wearing the usual grimy jeans, dirty tee, and leather vest, came into the office to pay up and claim his unit. He was accompanied by a similarly attired long-haired twenty-something who hung back like some cowboy gunslinger presumably to be ready in case some shit went wrong. He had a wandering eye; both orbs menacing – you couldn’t be sure which eye was watching you. I assisted him. The Corpse had long since departed. He showed ID, which I compared to the name on the account in the computer. The hard copy of the tenant’s ID was tucked away in the file cabinet. He paid. He obtained access to the space. Over three days, the two of them emptied it out. They left behind a trail of broken glass and hollow-point 22 caliber bullets.

Two weeks passed after Ronny and his walleyed sidekick had left. In comes this shorty, scrawny rough-looking dude dressed in tee, vests, and jeans who says he’s Rory Rollins and wants to check on his space. Oh, says I. He gives the unit number. I say we had a Ronny Rollins who rented that unit, but he moved out. What? That’s my space. Check it out. He slaps a driver’s license down. As he seems convinced, I fish out the file paperwork from the vacate pile. Sure enough, staring back at me from the attached photo of the driver’s license copied at the time of rental is the sad visage of Rory Rollins, and it’s his name on the license. Rory’s getting testy. I say Ronny must’ve misrepresented himself when he and the kid moved out of the unit. Rory, now sort of resigned to his stuff’s fate, wants to know what the kid looked like. He asks about videotape. I said I’d be happy to share any video with a police officer if he wanted to pursue a legal claim. This is a time-honored method to get out of any sticky situation with marginal folks whom you know don’t want anything to do with the police.

Rory was more interested in the kid than his stuff. I described the kid to him, realizing I had probably offered too much information. That seemed to end it. I felt sorry for the guy. I got to know him a little as he popped up now and again on the property with another tenant. He looked like life had kicked him around a few times. Losing all his shit to his archrival brother just seemed to be another chapter in the Brother Rollins tragedy. But there’s one more kick to come.

A couple of weeks go by. Rory stops at the office on a Friday. He has a wedding to go to the next day and would really like a copy of the videotape of the day that his brother came in with the kid. He wants to put the tape in a box and wrap it with pretty paper. For, you see, this will be his wedding day gift for his daughter. He wants her to see the proof of the betrayal of her father by her uncle. And he wants her to see for herself (prima facie) what a dirty dealing lowdown walleyed sumbitch she just hitched herself to!

I couldn’t help him with his wedding gift idea. The sad, low-grade drama was almost Shakespearean – the Capulets and Montagues had nothing on this steaming pile of crazy! The ineptitude of The Corpse leading to a minor miscue that triggers the series of events. The befuddled manager unwittingly reveals the extra layer of the tragedy. The revengeful brother, who, thanks to moms, stumbles into a perfect payback. And at its center, the pathetic figure of little Rory who couldn’t quite ever get things to go right for him. If only Ma and Pa hadn’t embarrassed him those long years ago and had spent a little more time teaching him some life skills – like good penmanship!

3 years ago – Florida Man Gets a New Address

Self-storage is very much a business of discretion – we are not here to pry into people’s lives or spread their information around. By definition, self-storage contracts are between a single individual and the company renting the space. For example, we do not provide details about our tenants to law enforcement officials unless they have the necessary documents. This can lead to some tricky situations such as roommate squabbles, spousal disputes, etc. Such was the case when I followed a company policy designed as a courtesy and sent a Florida back to his prison cell.

A polite well-dressed young man rented a unit from me. The young man’s story was familiar. He needed storage because he had just arrived in Minnesota for a new job. Our contract required an address. He had not yet obtained a local address, so he used the one on his Florida driver’s license. He said he would update his account once he acquired a place to live. He went off into his life and his new position as a salesman at a local upscale imported car lot.

I mailed him a thank-you card, something that we routinely did as a courtesy and as a way to confirm the information given to us. It was a nice feel-good thing to do, and if a problem arose, we could take care of it sooner than later. For the most part, that issue could be taken care of easily with new info. Rarely, well never, does this result in a customer getting put behind bars!

Turns out, our salesman had left a pissed-off ex back in the Sunshine State where he had either skipped bail or escaped from jail on a burglary charge. She was none too pleased with this state of affairs and dimed him to the feds who easily located him selling Beemers and ‘Cedes just up the street from our facility. They cuffed him and sent him south to do his time.

I learned most of this from an uncle the lad had listed as his emergency or alternate contact. Of course, he had defaulted on the rental agreement and was in the auction sale process. The uncle was a throw-back deep country southerner who spoke in a thick drawl. He told me about the prison bid and may have actually said, “He’s in the jailhouse now.” There wasn’t much the old boy could do for me – he “didn’t have no money for that.” He felt bad. I felt bad. Here I was just doing the polite thing and following company policy. The unit ended up sold at auction. He didn’t need none of it no how – not at the new address!

3 years ago – The Magic Floating Davenport

Telephone presence and empathetic listening ability are essential skills for a successful storage provider. There are many aspects to storage that need careful listening and questioning to draw information from the future tenant. For example, while the customer may be focused on a price, you must learn to determine the size that will work for them.

A couple of months into my career, a customer, who hailed from the Arabian Peninsula, showed up wanting a unit. “How much a 5×5,” he said. I launched into my practiced spiel, but he interrupted. “I rent, how much?” Okay, this is easy, I gave him the price, and he rented the space. “I bring truck later,” he said. Yeah, I told him, you can get in until 10:00.

The next morning, I peered out from the attached apartment’s patio door attached to the office into a perfect spring morning. I scanned the yard. And was startled by the sight of a full-sized sofa floating in mid-air above the eight-foot-tall privacy fence that separated the apartment yard from the storage facility. I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. Suspended there and backdropped by the bright pink blossoms of a flowering tree, gently billowing white clouds, and a crystal clear blue sky, was a tastefully maroon cloth upholstered sofa.

I quickly investigated the other side of the fence. There was a large pile of household furnishings – beds, dressers, tables, lamps, chairs, and assorted boxes. It looked as if a moving truck had dumped its load. Possibly explaining why the couch was placed on top of the pile. I did not connect to the 5×5 rental and waited most of the day for someone to come forth to claim the items.

Finally, my Arabian friend appeared, and the mystery was solved. Turns out, he had a five-bedroom house full of stuff to store. Despite being shown the unit, had conflated the number of bedrooms, five, with the 5×5 size and rented it for the low rate offered. From the land he came from also comes stories of giant genies issuing from small lamps. Perhaps he thought he could magically pay the price of a 5×5 and have it work for the contents of his entire house, but we all know how hard it is to get the genie back in the bottle and vice versa.

He had engaged in wishful thinking. I had followed the easy path to a sale. With a couple of good questions, maybe a different outcome. The next morning, I saw a red cardinal atop that fence against another brilliant blue sky with no sofa in the air – and that was magic enough for me!

3 years ago – An Honest Day’s Work

The first site I managed was quite large. We sometimes employed day laborers to perform tasks such as cleaning unit doors and extra landscape maintenance.

One aspect of the storage business that is attractive to investors is that there are low payroll costs. A typical site runs with only a couple of employees. Usually, they double up on Saturdays and run with a single person for the rest of the week. Depending on the property’s size, assistance is needed with tasks such as building maintenance and landscaping. Some companies have a maintenance department; some use day laborers.

At that first property, we used a firm called Labor Ready. If you’re familiar with such companies, you know that they attract an assorted array of help – students, folks new in town, people who like to control their schedule, and many from the ranks of people who for whatever reason have trouble holding down a regular job.

I had some experience with day workers. I had been one a time or two. But more significantly, had been a foreman of a crew of construction site laborers consisting of day help from the inner city of Baltimore. I ascended to the lofty position by dint of being the last remaining laborer employed directly by a company building an apartment complex in Towson. The foreman whom I replaced had gone off to his dream job at a steel plant.

This was the early 70s; the quality of workers who needed a quick payday in that city was low. My crew was a daily band of misfits who, at best, might accomplish a quarter of what I could do by myself – and this was a crew of six men! I would drag them around with me as I checked in with the various subcontractors to determine what work they needed. On a typical morning would share a beer with the plumbers who had some pipes to move. Then another beer and some pot with the carpenters who needed more doors brought up, The electricians who would snap me out of my beer and pot lethargy with a black beauty or a white cross while asking for a cleanup. The afternoons I herded the workers and shifted them around to the different buildings; their drugs of choice – heroin for some and cheap wine and liquor for the rest. I didn’t have high expectations because of this experience when we booked day workers at the storage facility.

Remarkably it seems that the Ballmer work ethic had not found its way to the far north in the early 2000s. We’d order a couple. Usually, we’d get one competent one and one not so much. If you added the efforts, and then divided by two, you’d get 75% – and that was okay. Most of the work got done; we’d do some touch-ups.

We needed some cleanup on the backside of the site where the cameras couldn’t see. It was one of those pesky green spaces that the cities like to require. Some customers loved it too – a perfect place to dispose of the stained sofa, broken clothes dryer, and that stack of reading material you didn’t want Mother to see. We called the labor place, and they sent a couple out.

The two that came fit the mold. One was a gangly kid, student type; the other a burned-out old-timer looking for some quick muscatel wine money. The kid was the good one, and together they damn near finished. I signed them off at 4:00 (that was the one task they never failed to get done – no sign-off, no pay.) We said our goodbyes, and they rode off in a winter-beater, kid driving. They had met expectations.

Around 5:00, I’m closing out the day, look up, and the beater’s back, just the kid. What’s this?

He says, “I feel bad we didn’t get the work done today. Would you mind if I went back and finished it? You don’t have to pay me.”

I’m stunned. I had to decline the offer, of course, what with insurance and all that. I told the kid I admired him for asking and thanked him. He tooled off back into his night.

I’d like to think that I worked a little harder at my job the next day and that my cynicism had softened a little as well.

3 years ago – Hot Fun in the Summertime: The Yam Story

This Thanksgiving, American families will gather around tables heaped with savory dishes that are generally only consumed on a couple of special days. Holiday fare such as wobbling cylinders of jellied cranberry sauce, green and yellow succotash, that string bean/onion sludge, and that all-time holiday fave, baked marshmallow-topped candied yams. Most of my countrymen, and I, would be hard-pressed to come up with a fact about yams other than they come in cans. Maybe a guess that they are a different flavor of potatoes.

We would not know that yams are primarily produced in West Africa, where they are an essential daily staple, and that the tubers stay preserved for up to six months, which makes them useful in the tropical climate. I certainly knew none of this when I rented a storage unit to the African Market of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.

The proprietor of the market was Ante Addy – pronounced “auntie,” a fact that would send my assistant, Kathy, into a laughing fit. Compared to the apple-cheeked pie-baking aunties of the Midwest, this Ante was the polar opposite. A huge, full-bodied dark-skinned man, he communicated through his fawning assistant Charles. Charles interpreted the barely audible grunts, imperceptible winks, and slight nods that Ante gave him to indicate that he understood the lease terms he was signing. One of those terms that I made sure to emphasize was that there was no food allowed in the unit except for sealed, packaged items. After all, it was a market. Charles and the Buddha-like owner affirmed they understood the part about packaging. As we will see, they may have understood ‘okay to store packaged goods as ‘okay to package stored goods’ – big difference.

Minnesota, known for cold weather, gets extremely hot in June. Tropical. June of 2001, my 4th month in the storage business, was no exception. Comes moving day for the African Market. A large truck backs up to the standard (unheated/uncooled) 10×20 storage unit they had rented. The truck leaves, and I walk by the space. Expecting to see stacks of boxes and store fixtures, I’m greeted with the sight of an entire unit filled front-to-back and 7 feet high with loose yams. The earthy pungent odor of the tubers assails my nostrils as I look for Ante or Charles. But there is only some (supposedly) non-English speaking dude who’s there to secure the unit.

I sprint back to the office and begin the two-week ordeal of trying to contact someone at the market. Each passing day the sun beats down on the unit’s metal roof, and I fear that the fresh produce is baking inside. The smell spreads each day as well.

I call several times a day and ask for Charles or Ante. I say “Ante,” and Kathy doubles over in laughter each time.

Finally, I reach Charles, who assures me that they will be taking care of it soon and that he understands he can’t keep fresh produce in a storage space. Charles’ idea of ‘taking care of it’ involves a crew of about ten women dressed in colorful headscarves, white blouses cinched at the waist, and flowing printed skirts. They sit at card tables arrayed outside of the space and wield large knives that flash in the sun as they chop the yams and wrap them in cellophane for sale at the store. While they chop and chatter among themselves, loud tropical music is bumping out of a boombox. All that was missing was a National Geographic photographer. A visitor who might anticipate a quiet, sedate Minnesota storage facility would find himself transmitted to a rocking outside bazaar that one would see around Lagos, Nigeria’s capital.

All of this, of course, is in violation of lease terms and property rules. This fact makes me increasingly nervous as this process takes yet another week to complete. They sort of had me over the barrel as there were few alternatives to settling the problem. I couldn’t evict them; I’d be stuck with a rotting pile of yams! But, for chrissakes, I had just started the job and didn’t want my new employers to think I was an idiot. The oppressive odor, Kathy’s giggling, the click-clack of the jibber-jabbing knife ladies, and the pulsing beat of the music haunted me long after the final yam had been packaged and they moved out.

On that subdued Thanksgiving of 2001, just two months after 911, Americans shared a sense of gratitude to be alive in the land of the free. Like others, my family sat at a table heaped with the traditional dishes that we passed around. When the orange tubers swimming in sweet brown sugar/cinnamon sauce and topped with slightly charred marshmallows came my way, I declined. Not this year, I thought. Naw, no yams for me!

3 years ago – Dating a Tenant / Money For Nothing

“Get it in writing.” A great quote and good advice for many areas of life. In storage, leases usually contain a term that addresses verbal agreements – there are no oral agreements. Sometimes you have to drag the lease out of the file cabinet to show a customer what they signed after they’ve claimed “You said this” or “But, she said that.”

While not included in a storage unit lease term, dating a tenant is usually discouraged. Because of the contractual relationship’s nature, it is generally inadvisable to make it a romantic one. But folks will be folks; commingling has been known to happen.

A gentleman, technically not a tenant since he had recently vacated his space, asked Kathy* out to dinner. Kathy, not one to turn down a free meal, accepted. They had a nice dinner that evening and on four additional dates. After dinner number five, the guy wanted Kathy to come over to his place so that they could “take things to the next level.”

Kathy declined the man’s offer stating that she was only interested in dinner and in being just friends. He seemed somewhat put off by this answer.

He called the next day. “I want my money back.”

“What money?” she asked.

“The money I paid for those dinners with. You didn’t close the deal.”

“What deal?”

Kathy refused, and the budding romance ended with that call – another check-out from the Heartbreak Hotel.

Maybe he should have got it in writing!

3 years ago – Fearing The Reaper

Checklists are a useful tool in many businesses – where would airlines be without them. It always puzzled me that the lists that I’ve seen usually begin with this: turn on the lights. I’ve worked for several firms in the retail and storage fields. Of course, you’re going to turn on the lights. Who wouldn’t do this? How unnecessary!

Well…

I ran a downtown property in Minneapolis for Company Self-Storage*. We sold U-Haul moving supplies. We did not rent their trucks due to tight parking. Because of this, when we ordered merchandise, we had to pick it up at another of our sites that rented trucks.

We had a van emblazoned with the company logo that we used as a move-in promo. I drove this van to our Edina store early one morning to collect an order.

I arrived at the site a few minutes after opening. At the entry keypad, I used a company-wide security code. This code would flash on a large screen in the rental office. Presumably, the person on duty would notice and/or glance at the vehicle making entry and note the company identification.

After backing up to the loading dock, I went around to the office to introduce myself. All the lights were off; it was very dark inside. Six customers stood in front of the counter. The single person on duty, new to the company, appeared to be helping one of them. His bearded face floated in the computer glow, the only source of light. Honestly, I thought I had walked in on a séance as the guy stared deeply into the screen. The customers were silent.

I didn’t completely dismiss the idea that he was communicating with The Great Beyond. However, I thought it more likely he was having trouble with the operating system. Wearing a shirt, hat, and name tag that identified the company, I greeted him. “I’m Dan with the Minneapolis Company Self-Storage store. I’m here to get our merch. Do you need help?” The only answer I received was a small ripple of annoyance on his face. His smoldering black eyes never wandered from the screen.

“Okay, then.” I walked through the rear door of the office to the loading platform where the order was located. I busied myself with this for about twenty minutes. As I placed the last bundle in the truck, I glanced up at the dock.

From the shadowy recesses of the office, the Minister of Darkness had emerged. He scowled down at me. “Who are you? Why are you here?” he demanded. I repeated my name and purpose, all the while wondering why he hadn’t noticed the logo on the hat, shirt, nametag, and van.

He then sneeringly asked, “Why did you think I needed help?” Not sure if I had offended his mastery of the Underworld Realms or his command of the company operating system, I muttered something. I backed away. I quickly hopped into the van fumbling with the key like the spooked high-school kid in every low-budget horror movie. Not looking back, I dipped the hell out of there.

His Dark Majesty did not last much longer with the company after that. Didn’t take to storage, trouble following directions, I guess.

These days, the fact that the first line on a checklist reads ‘turn on the lights’ doesn’t bother me.

3 years ago – The Manager and the Mouse

Sometimes we humans find ourselves in situations that make us think, “Can this really be true? Is this a comedy? Where are the cameras?” The cause could be our own stupidity, the misadventures of offspring, or the intrusion Mother Nature occasionally makes into our ordered lives.

One day, a tiny mouse took one storage property manager to the brink of exasperation and brought out some hidden acting talents from him. When forced to, humans can be quite resourceful and nimble. Sometimes, value emerges through the mess and chaos.

The setting for this desperate dance was a 700+ unit, five-building facility nestled along railroad tracks just inside the limits of a large midwestern city. Between the buildings are expanses of asphalt to allow for the maneuvering of moving trucks. The manager was justifiably proud of this gleaming, well-maintained property.

The day burned bright and sunny, a Saturday, the busiest day of the week. Rodents don’t like such days; they prefer dark, moist secret places. Escorting a customer on a rental tour, the manager spotted a gray mouse in the middle of the driveway. Like hawks on limping hare, storage managers can zero in on little things amiss on their sites at impressive distances. They are always on guard for missing locks, nails, screws, and cigarette butts. And, oh yeah, rodents, a rarity on a well-maintained site but an occupational reality. The customer, not as trained and lost in his own concerns, remained oblivious to the interloper. Deftly the manager diverted his attention.

“We have a great security system,” he said as he directed the customer’s gaze to the roof and artfully guided him around the wandering visitor. The customer’s needs were such that they had to go to that particular building across the paved lot. The manager suspected why the mouse was in the light. The little guy had probably feasted on one of the many bail stations and now was sick and disoriented. The manager surmised that his rental prospect would not appreciate a breakdown on mouse behavior. He could lose a sale because of the ick factor. On the return, the manager repeated his diversion act. “Oh, look at the graffiti on that train! Isn’t that interesting?” he said as he cast a sideways glare mouseward.

They returned to the office and completed a lease. The manager bid his customer a hale farewell. He then prepared to expedite the departure of his furry nemesis. When aft gang agley, another customer arrived. Of course, this customer had the same needs as the last. Onto Mouse Adventure II – the banter, the cameras, the trains, and the pas de deux in the center of the sunlit asphalt. Back to the office wearing a cheesy facade of unctuous friendliness that barely concealed rising anger. Managers hate mice.

After the second guy, there was a respite. The manager decided to deal with the intruder. He unstabled the golf cart (should have had this out for those tours, he thought), saddled up and with a flathead shovel in hand, drove out to the expanse to do battle. Alas, no foe was to be seen on the dusty, sun-baked field. No mouse! As he surveyed the area, he saw only some rows of leaves furrowed in front of the building. Damn it, the fucker’s in the furrows! With militaristic precision, he ran the golf cart through the leaves. He left sans trophy but with grim satisfaction, as he thought he might have gotten lucky and run the little bastard over.

“Oh, no,” as he approached the office, “this can’t be, not another customer!” There, a woman stood waiting – an older woman, this guy’s favorite. Political correctness and he are decided strangers; old people strain his patience. Today he is quite agitated. As if scripted, she embodied the role. She talked slowly and made him repeat himself. After several volleys of whats and heavy sighs, a determination was made that, of course, her needs would be best met with a unit in the same cursed building. Here comes Mouse Adventure III. This time, utilizing the golf cart, he carried the woman out to the building. They cruised out to a storage space (the last rentable unit of its type) that sat aside the furrowed leaves that were frantically being surveilled by our clipboard-carrying hero.

He opened the door to the storage unit and stepped aside to allow his slow-moving and inquisitive client to peer in. He again looked around. To his mixed horror and elation saw a large red splotch that formerly was his meandering nemesis. He artfully positioned himself so that he was betwixt splotch and customer. Like a cat in a litter box, he started to cover the red circle with backward kicks of his legs while smilingly extolling the virtues of the block and steel cubicle he was attempting to rent. “Yes, the doors close tightly,” kick. “We do have cameras,” kick. “No, we don’t have a mouse problem,” kick.

The old woman smiled at the fidgeting, red-in-the-face manager. “Well, look at that,” she said as she pointed to a spot behind him. He turned as one might approach a guillotine. He expected that his kicks had missed their mark. He was feeling very silly at this point, nonplussed. But to his great surprise, there in the hot sunlight asphalt, a mere three inches from his successfully covered rodent remains was a shiny new dime glinting in the sun.

Of course, a shiny new dime, as if some mystical union of old ladies had conspired to do him a solid. A ten-cent piece never more welcome than at this moment. For the manager, a lesson learned – respect is earned, and value can be found in the most unlikely of places.

3 years ago – A Christmas Reflection

For a property manager, the death of a tenant can be emotionally draining and legally challenging. Sometimes a surprising back story is revealed. Such was the passing of Thomas Andersen*.

DON’T CALL, KEEPS TO HIMSELF, LIKES TO FISH. I found this highlighted message in the Tenant Notes** section of one of the customers after my company purchased the site and transferred tenant information into our operating system. Of the several hundred customers inputted, this was the only highlighted note. Someone from the previous company saw fit to make sure we knew Thomas Andersen’s quirky nature.

Many of the operational functions we did differed from the previous owners. For example, we retrofitted new doors and changed the due date to the first of the month. I had to deal with Tom (in person, of course), explaining that he had to pay a little more to advance his due date and that we installed a lock on the new door. In his mid-seventies, Tom, a gruff mannered wiry guy, pushed back on both accounts. He received a concession for the “extra” rent. He wanted to know what happened to the old lock that he “paid a lot of money for.” The previous company featured FREE LOCK on its marketing, including a well-worn sign on the entry gate – despite this, a remarkable number of customers claimed they also had “paid a lot of money for” their removed locks.

I’ve done a few of these transfers of ownership, and they generally go the same way – people don’t know you; they’re confused and think the rent is going to get jacked. After a while, they calm down after venting now that they’ve seen you a couple of times and accept the situation. Tom and I went along those lines; he was progressively less tense and irritable each time he dropped off a rent check. I’d greet him by name, which disarmed him, and by the 4th or 5th month, he’d grunt a goodbye on the way out. I had seen a chink in his rough manner that told me he appreciated the service.

The last time I saw him, mid-March, the usually neatly groomed Tom came in haggard and unkempt. He did not look well. An apparent accident had left his car with a mangled front end. I asked him what happened. “Some guy hit me, pulled out right in front of me. I came by to tell you I can’t pay the rent, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to,” he said. I gave him the standard advice to keep in touch with us. “I’m sick. I can’t fix my car. I just don’t know.” With that, he left: a proud man clearly out of options.

Several weeks went by with no word from Tom. Calls went unanswered until the dreaded “the Verizon customer you are attempting to reach…” recording played. Tom’s account had fallen into the auction protocol, and his stuff slated for sale. He had left no alternate contact information, and even an internet search did not help. Finally, I got a call from a nephew, Dave*. He asked if Tom still stored here and then laughed as he said, “he’s dead.” I realized the laugh wasn’t mockery, more of exasperation as Tom, who died without a will, had left behind a legal mess.

Dave jumped through all sorts of hoops to settle various aspects of Tom’s life, starting with the apartment where Tom had died a lonely old man’s death. Dave found keys and the storage lease in the apartment, which led him to us. We pulled the unit from the auction, and after Dave presented the required documentation, gave him access to the storage space.

When I opened the door for Dave to empty the space, I stole a quick glance at its contents. The unit contained the usual older guy’s stuff – tools, some books, clothes, and, of course, Tom’s fishing gear. Oddly, a stack of clear totes that appeared to hold Christmas decorations stood in the middle of the unit.

Dave loaded a trailer with the goods and stopped in the office to sign off on the account. I said,” Dave, not to pry, but I couldn’t help but notice the Christmas stuff. Seems a little out of character for the old duffer. What’s up with that?”

“Back when we were kids, Uncle Tom lived by himself in the family home in Stanwood. It was a big, 3-story house up on a hill out in the sticks. He had a big party on Christmas Eve every year, for years! He’d decorate that house and light it up. Was really something. The whole family, everybody, went to Uncle Tom’s house on Christmas Eve.”

I expressed my surprise. Dave went out to the truck and took something from it. “You should read this. It’s about my Uncle Phil, his brother.” He had fished an old local newspaper from the trailer.

I admit that Dave’s answer stunned me. I didn’t figure gruff, old Tom to be the sentimental type. I wished Dave well as he drove away with the old man’s life packed into the trailer. “Off to the dump,” he said with a shrug.

Curious, I read the obituary. Phillip Andersen* was a prominent figure in the community. Many people made entries in the testimonial section of the obit. Among their words, a story took shape.

Tom had been born on the train from North Dakota when the family emigrated to the Northwest just before WWII. Growing up in Skagit County, the boys were inseparable, usually seen heading off to their favorite fishing spots along the Stillaguamish River with the snow-capped Cascades looming above. An idyllic Huckleberry Finn boyhood.

In high school, Phil became one of the popular kids busy with girls and cars. He knew all the new rock-n-roll dances. On the other hand, Tom remained a quiet kid, off fishing. In a bit of irony, one of the last of the several entries came from a neighbor who admired Phil because he mowed his own lawn despite being a double-amputee. Those Andersen boys, independent to the end!

As the Christmas season approaches, I keep thinking about those totes and the glittering decorations within. I recall the unspoken human contact I shared with the misplaced fisherman. Like the storage unit that contained the unlikely stack, there was something sentimental inside Tom.

They say at the end, one comes into light. I like to imagine Tom in that lonely apartment drifting away from this world. He sees a glow coming from his house on the hill nestled in the fragrant cedars. In the air, the light glints off misting snow that softly coats the ground around him. As he nears the house, he sees more lights from the colored strings he hung. Holiday music and the cheery voices of the folks inside enter the muted quiet of the evening. They’re all here, he thinks.

Everybody comes to Uncle Tom’s house on Christmas Eve.

~

* actual names not used in the interest of privacy

**In most tenant management systems, Tenant Notes are vital because once entered, they cannot be edited or deleted; presumably, this enhances your case if it reaches a judicial review. Because of this, well-run companies strictly forbid any negative personal commentary – e.g., TENANT SUCKS, NEVER PAYS ON TIME!!! Because of these restraints, any such information is communicated obliquely, and you learn to read between the lines. The Allen note suggested a problematic, argumentative tenant who paid when he damn well pleased.

3 years ago – Dan’s Silence of the Lamb’s Moment

Cutting a customer’s lock and inventorying the unit contents is a dreaded but necessary step in the lien process. Generally, the lock is cut once the account is a month or so in arrears. Once cut, the unit is advertised for sale and then eventually sold at an auction. There are usually two company employees present during the lock cut. It is then relocked and sealed until the auction date.

I undertook this task filling in for an ailing supervisor for several properties. For a witness and muscle, I had The Big Guy along – he could wield 42” bolt cutters and slice through thick padlocks like an alligator chomping a chicken leg!

At a rural site, we had to take care of a 10×20. The Big Guy cracked the lock and slowly, oh so slowly, raised the door while I waited to take pictures and record the contents. Big Guy liked to do this because “you never know what’s behind these doors.”

Of course, there was the fear of finding something gruesome like that incredible storage unit scene in The Silence of the Lambs, when Clarice discovers a decapitated human head in the backseat of an old car.

He inched the door up, revealing a vehicle inside! The door rose over the tires, the front grill, and across the hood. Our eyes zeroed in on the cab. On the hood, just in front of the steering wheel, our delinquent wiseguy tenant had placed a blonde-wigged mannequin head! I think I jumped back like a kangaroo on a trampoline. The Big Guy was bent over the bolt cutters laughing so hard he cried.

Talk about your insult to injury; the deadbeat had painted blue eyes and a big red smear for lips on the thing. Not to mention the six months and miles of red tape it took to get rid of a vehicle in those days.

It could have been worse, and in hindsight, it is pretty funny. The bad guy does win every once and a while. The best you can do is go home and be with your family. Enjoy your dinner, maybe with fava beans and a nice chianti!

3 years ago – Sex in Storage: The Devil and Ms. Lindsey

Breaking news: People have sex in storage units!

Yes, it happens. When a couple gets together or occasionally someone alone, things might happen—things you really don’t want to see on your rounds.

Or you do want to see if you’re Dwight*, acting assistant district manager for Treehouse Storage of Northeast Minneapolis. As the title implies, this cat loved to enforce petty rules. His purpose was to find as many violations of the property rules as he could find – and woe to the violators. Raised in the sticks, this country boy knew about farm-animal biology. Still, he was weak in the area of human relations. He stood a good 6’3”, 250 lbs with a freckled face that went from bumpkin confusion to severe rule enforcer in a blink. His straw-colored, close-cut hair topped a high forehead with steel gray peepers for extra oomph to his tough-guy act. To heighten the intimidating effect, he dragged a leg damaged in an incident with a farm implement. His job brought him around to various properties to look for maintenance issues, site cleanliness, and the like to put in a report on a clipboard they let him use. Sometimes he’d come across misbehaving tenants like the Devil* and Ms. Lindsey.*

The photographer I named The Devil rented an upper level 10×10. He stored a red velvet camel-back sofa and a few other props for his profession. He had chosen the unit for its number. That number happened to be his childhood area code that he also had tattooed in Gothic numerals on his neck. The numerical blended in with the multitude of symbols that adorned his face and every visible part of him. Tall, thin, dark-skinned, he wore a goatee and long hair set in neat cornrows. He smiled in a well, Satanic manner. He’d stop in the office and chat. Never did learn what type of pictures he took, but he was a good dude and paid his rent on time.

Lindsey, a soft-spoken, kind young woman, also rented two units in the same upper level. A pretty face framed by curly blonde hair, she also paid her rent on time and didn’t cause problems of any sort around the facility. I didn’t know her that well.

A note about property checks: Sometimes, you might find an occupied unit unlocked with the door down. That’s a red flag violation and should be investigated. As you approach such a storage unit, you want to make your presence known. Once there, you knock on the door because you don’t know what’s behind that door. Inside there could be a meth lab, a hungry tiger, a group of four sitting at a table enjoying a fun round of gin rummy, or even…what’s coming! The point is for safety and dignity’s sake, announce yourself.

What you don’t do is sneak up to the door and pull it open. Unless you’re Dwight, and you have a dream. A dream formed on those tortured days back on the farm when he watched the cows, pigs, chickens, and dogs go at it in wild abandon. He wondered what it must be like for people. Maybe someday I’ll see, he thought.

And someday finally came on the 2nd floor of Building A of Treehouse Storage of Northeast Minneapolis. Tending to his acting assistant district manager duties, he dragged his leg over the cement floor. Carefully he notated (his word) as many petty violations as he could find on the report. He spotted the unlocked door down on Unit #612. He had seen the blonde girl and the brown guy. He knew they were in the area. He slowed his walk, held his breath, and, hoping against hope, crept up to the door. There he stooped down, grabbed the handle, and whipped it open!

Dwight would often recount in great detail the scene in front of him. There in flagrante delicto stood Ms. Lindsey stretched over the red velvet sofa while behind her The Devil – well, you get the picture.

Their behavior earned the two of them eviction. In addition to delivering the notices, I lost three units from my occupancy list. Dwight fulfilled a dream. Rules are rules, and of course, you want to keep order on your property. But in this case, as in most, sending a message with a simple knock on the door as a warning is sufficient.

And, if you think you can change human behavior with some petty rules or checks on a crappy report, try selling it to the cows, pigs, chickens, and dogs.

3 years ago Sex in Storage: Picture of Lindsey

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say. Tenants often store ‘priceless’ artwork or items with sentimental value despite what common sense would tell you. Not to mention the lease terms that most firms include that prohibit such items. In a twenty-year career with stops in some dodgy areas, I’ve had a customer or two suffer a mishap on the property. Wouldn’t you know it – their unit was filled with priceless artwork and a large-screen tv.

One morning I found a picture propped against the wall outside of the rental office. I flipped it around to reveal someone’s crude attempt at painting the nude upper torso and head of a woman. The primitive work relied heavily on vivid colors – pink skin, yellow hair, and blue eyes. Except for the fully detailed breasts, it might have been the work of a good 4th-grader. Someone playing a joke on me, I thought. I asked the maintenance guy to chuck it.

Instead of getting rid of it, the maintenance man hung the picture on his man-cave garage wall alongside his NASCAR and Minnesota Vikings posters. Since the grandkids came to visit often, he painted red stars over the nipples.

The mystery person who placed the painting by the office door came forward. Tony, an eighty-five-year-old Navy vet, said it had suddenly appeared in his storage unit. Somewhat confused by this, he thought he should bring the work of art up to the office, just in case.

I investigated and fleshed out the mystery. I realized that Ms. Lindsey’s old unit was next to his. Must’ve flipped over the wall in the airspace above when she moved out. Thankfully the old bird didn’t have a heart attack. I gave the situation no further thought.

Until weeks later when Ms. Lindesy called. She wasn’t looking for money, but she said the piece was important to her. She’d like her self-portrait back. Did we have a lost and found? She asked. Well, I wasn’t about to inform her that the maintenance man had defaced her precious self-portrait with carefully placed red stars. I didn’t know where to start, so I lied, feigning ignorance.

Frankly, I couldn’t believe she’d own up to producing the ridiculous thing, much less want it back. One man’s trash is another’s treasure, they also say. So, now, on a starry, starry night, the splotchy Ms. Lindsey smiles down like a Mona Lisa on the guys watching the races and football.

3 years ago – You Get What You Pay For

When I first sought employment in storage, I did it the old-fashioned way. I opened the Yellow Pages, thumbed down the storage facilities list, called them, and asked if they needed help. In the two decades since things have certainly changed. The Yellow Pages were the primary marketing strategy in storage. Today the internet is the central marketing platform. One of the outlets on the net that some companies find attractive is craigslist.com. Craigslist is free.

In my experience, the calls I would get from a Craigslist ad would rarely result in a rental. In fact, I can only recall one – the unforgettable and very regrettable Alex Fender*.

He zoomed up on a fat-tire bicycle to the front door at five minutes to close. He wore tight dark clothing with a black, scarlet-plumed helmet. A forty-ish dude with sharp features, he started asking for favors right off the bat. Did I mention Craigslist is full of bottom-feeders seeking discounts? When I told him we only allowed 24-hour access to businesses, he produced a business card. He said he needed the late hours to get merchandise, etc. Okay, I said.

Day Two, he wanted a unit in a particular area of the building. Okay, I said.

Day Three had me cautioning him about riding a skateboard on the hardwood floor in the hall.

Day Four, as I watched on the camera, he wheeled one of our large metal platform carts out the rear door and down the loading ramp. Upon seeing the Assistant Manager pull into the parking lot, he rolled it back up the ramp and into the building. During his short stay, we lost both of our carts.

Day Five, I detected the odor of weed in the hall by his space. Fender’s was the only code used that morning.

Day Six, I noticed that the heat wasn’t working as it should. The office was freezing while the hall was quite comfortable. Fender’s unit was located there. The damper that divided the heat between the two areas sat in the two-foot crawlspace above the storage units at least 25 feet deep. Fender had apparently slithered across the chicken wire to get to it.

On Day Seven, I sent him an eviction notice and turned off his access to the property. Fat-tire Fender and his red jackass mohawk never graced my presence again.

Thirty days later, per the eviction terms, we cut off the lock on his space. Like a rodent, he had made himself a cozy nest inside. The nest featured power from an extension cord plugged into a socket somewhere in the ceiling. There was a bed with a lamp on a cardboard box nightstand. He had placed carpet pieces and flattened boxes over the chicken wire above so the hall lights wouldn’t hurt his sensitive little rodent eyes.

The property incurred the costs of replacing the carts and having an HVAC guy reset the damper. Fender had moved in on a “1st Month Free” special. He easily would have recouped his $15.00 admin fee by scrapping the carts with some leftovers for cheese and pot. The path to disappointment is often cluttered with offers of something “free.”

3 years ago – No Invoice, No Check!!!

No calamity is the result of just one misstep – it seems it’s usually a combination of several.

Getting a reliable address from a new tenant is a critical part of the leasing process. Often folks that use storage units are in transition, and addresses can change. Firms typically will require a signed document to make the change. Most firms do not allow changes based on a postcard sent from a parent company that announces: “We’ve Moved!” Further, you would like the agent that received such a postcard to, at least, follow up with the correct local firm before they input the new address. Of course, we wouldn’t have a story if this was always done.

None of the errors involved in this tale were immediately apparent to me as I took over the day-to-day operations of the 1000-unit property. The issue revolved around two similarly named firms – Northland Electric Company (NEC1) and Northwind Electric Company (NEC2). NEC1 was a subsidiary of Worldwide Electronics, an international company that rented hundreds of storage units worldwide. NEC2 was a locally owned mom-and-pop repair shop that rented two large spaces.

Without hurting your head with all the minor details, this is what happened. Worldwide moved their head office and sent the postcard. The person who processed the mail that day in our office inputted the improper address change to the wrong firm. Confusion ensued for almost two years. Worldwide paid for the wrong space monthly on time while having to overnight checks to pay for their actual unit that was always late.

Whew! Okay, so why didn’t the local company ever inquire about this? I discovered the postcard after NEC1 finally pulled the plug and vacated their space. The next month, their local rep called asking why they received an invoice after leaving. I dug into the files and solved the riddle. The woman (presumably, Mom) in charge of paying the bills at NEC2, the locals, had mailed a hand-written letter in all caps some years ago. The letter outlined in great detail her frustration with not getting invoices. She ended the note with this: “NO INVOICE, NO CHECK!!!”

Mom damn well meant what she wrote. For almost two years, she sent no checks resulting in nearly $8,000.00 of free storage courtesy of Worldwide Electronics. I saw all of this as I spoke to the Worldwide rep. I gulped and then assured him that we would be no longer sending an invoice. I hung up the phone and sent a bill for the upcoming month over to Mom at the local shop. I took a couple of aspirin, my head hurt!

3 years ago – Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Like Steve

I’d rather be poor and happy than rich and alone. – Lady Gaga

We all like a good quotation, something to hang on the wall, tattoo on a body part, or even live by. What follows are three great quotes from a humble source: a guy named Steve who works for cash and tries to make the world a little happier for his presence.

Storage companies have varying policies on the use of the space. Some, typically older, single-owner properties, will allow businesses to work out of their units. Treehouse Mini Storage of Northeast Minneapolis, accompany I managed for in the mid-Aughts, was such a firm. We had a dude named Lee there who ran a computer reclamation project out of his unit. Lee hired people at $7.00 an hour cash to mine minerals from discarded devices. Paying with cash meant that Lee could dispense with most business norms such as policy handbooks, sick pay, sexual harassment training, and the like.

It’s a bone-cold Minnesota morning, and Lee is running late. One of his guys, Steve, is camped outside the rental office waiting for him. Putting on my best business courtesy, I invited him inside and offered him a free cup of coffee. He declined – “No, thanks. I’m good. I got a latte from Starbucks.” A latte from Starbucks! That’s a good half hour of pay.

Treehouse Mini kindly provided port-a-potties for their customers. One day Steve was engaged in conversation with a young lady inside a car while he stood outside near the can. They seemed to be having some sort of flirtatious exchange. I walked by and heard the tail end of the convo: “Hey. Let me get back atcha. I gotta take a dump,” Steve said as he reached for the door handle of the temporary sanitary facility. Love is strange.

I took a couple of days off to have some surgery to remove a basal cell cancer. They lopped off a piece of my nose, got rid of the offending tissue, and grafted a patch to repair the skin. My fill-in at the office probably relayed to Steve that I was getting worked on for cancer. The next time I saw him, he asked me, “When are you going to die?”

Steve wore the ragged clothes that one might imagine for the work of climbing over stacks of discarded computers to wrench out tiny metal components. His career choice and personal fund management might have been of dubious merit. His social manners crude. His grasp of medical concepts left a lot to be desired. But the man slugged through the cold and did honest work. And he had a big heart for people.

Storage is firmly planted in Two-Paychecks-Away America. Others, they may glide on the slick tiles and soft carpets of the monied glass towers. We cluster around the hissing Keurigs, steaming Folger pots, and foam coffee containers exchanging workaday pleasantries. Kindness is not a value metric on anyone’s accounting form. Not even at one-half hour’s pay!

3 years ago – You Shifty, You’re Devious, and You Need Discipline

Big Orange Self Storage (BOSS), a powerful leading self-storage provider, purchased a company that employed me in the early 2000s. My forced union with these folks was an unwelcome and revolting development. Frankly, I could’ve handled the situation with a little more class than I did.

My main beef with BOSS was the $1 First Month sham promo – $1 plus a healthy admin fee, a lock, and required insurance. Not to mention the extra rent that you needed to plunk down to cover the pro-rated remainder of the month after the “$1,” or you’d get whacked with a late fee. Some thought the whole thing a little shifty…

Mother told you – “don’t sign anything until you read it.” Dad also chimed in on that, and so did just about everybody who ever cared to comment on the subject. But a person renting a storage unit is not a 1960s teenager with a hit record who’s about to get screwed when they sign the dotted line. For chrissakes, you can exit a storage agreement with a vacate notice or by simply moving your stuff out.

But some listen to Mother; they’re contract readers. They seem to show up right at closing time. And aren’t we the nice ones? The ones willing to hang late to make that sale. And don’t they know it as they pore over each term, each line. Every word, while the clock ticks off unpaid minutes.

Like Sharon*, some seemed to zero in on the discomfort of the clock-conscious clerk (me). Sharon might have been enjoying herself. She seemed to have a tough time understanding why she would have to pay for the small remainder of the upcoming month when, by golly, the ad said it would be $1. I won’t bore you with the explanation; suffice to say this Sharon wasn’t buying it. At issue was a measly $10 that I collected so she wouldn’t accrue late fees.

A few weeks later, I had all but forgotten the incident. Phone rings at the tail-end of a lazy Saturday. A woman who I don’t recognize is assailing me. She claimed we misrepresented our discount. She blamed me and said, “You’re shifty.” I’m amused and play along, offering a standard response. “We’re sorry you feel that way, but blah, blah, blah…rent is due. She then says, “You’re devious.” I’m struggling to recall what the hell she is referring to. I say to her, “Sorry you feel that way, but blah, blah, blah…company policy.

“You need discipline,” she says. In the confused silence that follows this statement, I figure out who I’m talking to. It’s Sharon. I remember her stern face and her seeming joy at my unease as she read every word of her storage contract. This is about that $10!

Or, maybe, this was an invitation to something other than a business transaction. This thought occurred in hindsight after I mentioned it to a few friends. If she had something kinky in mind, that was a notion that sailed over my head.

Although I was half out the door of the company I worked for, maybe I needed a bit of a thrashing for being lazy enough to stay there. Staying in a situation that turns you cynical and brings forth the sarcastic attitude I displayed with Sharon, something she sure figured out. Don’t waste your time and spread your poison where it doesn’t belong. When you sense you’re not on the same page as the organization you’re with – leave.

For my bad attitude, yeah, some discipline was in order. But shifty and devious? Dude, I was just following the policy.

3 years ago – Love-Lost’s Sting

“They are one person. They are two alone. They are three together. They are for each other.” Steven Stills

Spring is just around the corner. Love is in the air! Couples in the throes of ardor pledge their loyalty and trust in each other. They want to do everything together, like renting a storage unit.

Hold on! You can only have one signer on a storage contract – that’s a Day 1 lesson. The lease is with one person and the owner exclusively. The reason: couples and occasionally throuples have the best intentions when entering into an agreement and we all know where that road can lead. Half of all marriages end in divorce. Who knows what the stats are on committed relationships. Throuples, forget about it.

Often such dissolutions lead to bitter disputes. As a property manager, you really want to avoid having these scenes play out in your rental office. Sometimes, through no fault of your own, you may find yourself caught in the middle…

At Minnesota Mini, the phone erupts on a Friday morning. A Mrs. Calvin Jones* is calling, and she is off the charts pissed. There’s an auction scheduled for the next week, and, “By God, you’re not selling my stuff!” Holding the receiver a few inches away to protect my eardrums, I try to come up with a response. Calvin Jones* is a tenant whose unit is set for the next auction. We know Calvin very well, and he’s on the slippery slope with payments. He’s the guy Kathy calls and says without introduction, “When are you going to pay me?”

Calvin drives a brown and tan Bronco with spinner hubcaps; stops in to tell us, “he’s trying to get us our money.” We like Calvin, his cool Bronco, and the promises to pay. He’s a deadbeat, for sure, albeit a pleasant one. He has a history of arriving at the last minute with cash in hand.

Yes, we know Calvin, but this Mrs. Calvin is a mystery. Apparently, she’s blown in from Colorado to right a grievous wrong. She’s incited a tornado of phone activity that follows quickly in the wake of her first call. The first of many interspersed with confused and worried calls from the police, the city council, the president of our company, and a somewhat overwhelmed district manager.

Mrs. Calvin (or Lady J) is pounding the phone and sending all sorts of people over to the rental office. Kathy and I are toeing the company line. Standing firm on the policy, we tell Lady J and entourage that we can only discuss the account with our tenant, Calvin.

Lady J screams to everyone within earshot that Calvin, her ex, stole the stuff in his unit from her. It’s her right to retrieve all of “her” property. “The son of a bitch stole it from me,” she wails. According to this woman, Calvin Jones is the personification of evil. He has ruined her life and the lives of their children, broken every promise he ever made, and is utterly worthless!

In her efforts, she’s enlisted the aid of the Brooklyn Park Police, who show up in the form of a rumpled, beleaguered detective who seems to have fallen under the spell of the self-described wounded woman. “Well, this seems a little harsh on your part,” he says to us.

Enter the district manager. He’s a bit overwhelmed as well. The tidal wave of chaos and confusion stirred up by the sudden appearance of this shrieking woman has landed squarely in his lap. The woman, his staff, the city council, his boss, and the goddamn cops are waiting on him to decide. He has all the marbles.

He caves. Okay, okay, she can take the stuff. To keep a shred of dignity, he gives her twenty-four hours to remove the items. Way to go, guy. Kathy and I are somewhat taken aback by the ferocity of the event and the outcome. Calvin’s a good tenant. Late a lot, but usually comes through at the end. We feel he’s getting jobbed by this whirlwind woman.

Nevertheless, we have a site to run. The next day comes, a Saturday, and it’s busy with multiple vehicles entering and exiting. We’re on the phone and writing contracts. Lady J has a big squad of helpers along with her. We’re spared the wrath of the ex-Mrs. Jones while she oversees the emptying of Calvin’s unit. They’re loading a large truck to take the crap to Colorado.

A procession of vehicles trails the loaded Colorado truck. Much to our baffled eyes, the last is the tan and black Bronco with the silver spinners. At the wheel? You guessed it, the erstwhile ex-Mrs. Jones! Could Calvin be stretched out on the backseat? Lady J’s gaze is firmly planted on the back of the moving truck. The spinners catch the sun in a glittering display as the parade heads out on 73rd Avenue.

Some say the completion of an auction is a relief to the tenant. A burden has been lifted from their shoulders, and they can relish the heavenly release. In Calvin’s case, though, I suspected there would be hell to pay in the long run.

Well played, Lady J!

3 years ago – Dumb

We all can do something dumb. Knuckleheadery is not an exclusive property, but some are more afflicted than others.

Storage facilities are often located along train tracks, the lower-cost real estate leads to less expensive storage rates. This type of land is suited for industrial purposes. Not for big-box retailers and residential use. While the sites may be tricky to get access to because of their location, they’re usually not too far from a main road or highway.

Another convenience offered by storage operators is truck rentals. Gotcha covered – storage unit, moving supplies, and a rental truck to carry them. When you’re done, leave the truck with us. Location and convenience! We have insurance, too – if something happens with that vehicle; for a couple of extra dollars, you can flip us the keys, wash your hands, and go on your way. No worries.

Joe Knucklehead don’t pay for no extras. He’s got a cooler full of chilled longnecks bumping in the ice back at the crib where his posse’s waiting for him to bring the Budget truck so they can load it up with his stuff. Joe’s under the gun, and he wants to get this move over. As they write up the rental agreement, Bill and Jane, the elderly site managers, advise him to pay the small insurance fee. “I don’t need that,” Joe blurts as he taps his fingers on the countertop.

“Well, okay then,” the operators say. They’ve seen his type before – too much in a hurry to listen to oldtimers’ advice. They wish him well as he snatches the keys and a copy of the contract.

Joe jumps into the cab of the 24-footer. He jacks it into drive and heads out on 73rd Ave. First things first, he finds 93X on the radio and cranks it. Smells Like Teen Spirit crackles out of the popped speakers. Joe’s fussing with the heat settings, defroster, wipers while stoking up a cig and twisting the lid off a Mountain Dew 20-ounce. He takes a quick glance at the red light on Highway 81, a short forty yards beyond the train tracks. No prob, got this.

The 4:00 o’clock freighter bound for St. Paul is not in sync with Joe. The unthinking, razor-focused Burlington Northern diesel entertains us by crushing the ass end of the Budget truck. A dazed and confused Joe is suddenly fifty thousand dollars in debt and feeling very stupid and contagious.

Joe Knucklehead didn’t want to fork over an extra $15 – that’s put near enough for a suitcase of Buds! Or a flannel shirt, for that matter. He pays the price for his mistake. And, all apologies, hasn’t every one of us been spanked by life. Usually when we’re young and usually not so painfully. It’s easy to latch on to the notion that if something costs a little extra, it must be a rip-off.

Just as an affordable storage facility’s location makes it a little challenging to get to, an added-on insurance fee can save money and trouble in the long run. Another piece of wisdom that Joe may have used when making the insurance decision as well as approaching the intersection – stop, look, and listen!

3 years ago – The Letters of Miss White

“This is my letter to the world

That never wrote to me“

― Emily Dickinson

I’ve endeavored in this piece to draw a distinction between laughing at an obviously afflicted person and being amused by the predicaments their affliction may have caused others. The subject is brilliant, has a remarkable ability to express her ideas, and is a self-sufficient person who pays her bills. No disrespect is intended, but nevertheless…

Storage workers, like others in jobs like cab drivers, C-store clerks, and diner waitstaff, are sometimes to life’s lonely and wounded a sympathetic ear. Maybe, the only kind word they might hear during their daily grind to survive. A storage space to someone on the fringe can be the only stable part of their existence. Halfway houses, homeless shelters, and family and associates’ borrowed couches are not the most secure places. Often these forgotten citizens bring in their treasures which, to the eyes of the settled, appear to be bits of rubbish, to stash away in a safe place. For the site operator, a friendly attitude and a tolerance for some rule-bending make for a successful business relationship. Up to a point, that is.

Miss White rented with Treehouse Mini Storage in North Minneapolis. She had a few quirks, but in the main, she behaved; just stretched the rules. Paid on time, and that was Treehouse’s primary concern. She had a storage space on the 2nd level where the units were fitted with metal swing-type doors. It sat in the center of a long hallway. She would spend a couple of hours there every so often sorting her stuff or changing her clothes. These actions are generally frowned upon by storage providers but tolerated as long as she didn’t bother anyone.

As anyone approached, she would step into the unit and whip the door shut.

Sometimes on my lock checks, I would get close enough to see inside before the door closed. I saw that Miss White had papered the walls with multi-colored sticky notes that she had scribbled on. I was reminded of the shed in the movie A Beautiful Mind. After I passed, she would emerge and send a withering glare my way. Apparently, other tenants would get the same treatment. Complaints started to be made at the rental office.

We messaged her that she needed to conform to the rules, and she responded by taping notes on the outside of the door. The messages followed the same outline and wording. They started with “I Curse the Curse of Death upon those whom.” They were printed in bold block letters on lined notebook paper and taped to the metal door with electrical tape framing them. The maintenance man and I would take them down only to find another the next time she came in. The messages would increase in severity as she added family members and associates to the original persons named. I, as the manager, was the primary target. What upset her about me was, in her thinking, my astonishing ability to make myself invisible. I would use this superpower to look over her shoulder and memorize the numbers of her flimsy combination lock (combo locks were another violation of the rules).

So convinced that we were using the combination to get access to her unit and steal stuff from her that she on at least two occasions hired a locksmith to change the code. That spending $100 to work on a $5 lock was an irony lost to her.

And the games played on; she’d post another sign; we’d take it down. With each new message, the list of the damned would grow. The curse of death was cast upon spouses, children, and associates of the invisible. There came an afternoon when she enlisted the aid of the local police authority to press her complaint.

Who would get such a call down at the cop station on a Wednesday afternoon? Why the tired fifty-year-old veteran bent on playing out the final weeks before getting his twenty-five years in for the pension. We watch as Miss White meets the bedraggled officer at the gate, takes him down the hall, and gives him an earful. The wan and beaten man shuffles into the rental office. “Let me guess,” I said before he spoke, “she said; I’m making myself invisible and reading her code over her shoulder?”

The glum policeman nods his assent. He writes something or other into a pocket notebook. He leaves while his drooping eyelids fight his eyeballs from rolling into the back of his head. Just three more Wednesdays to get through, he thinks as he pilots his dusty cruiser off the lot.

With this, Miss White has declared war. We respond, reluctantly, with the nuclear option. The next note is peeled off, and a generous spray of WD-40 is applied to the smooth sheet metal door, making it impossible to tape anything onto it. Perhaps in her mind, the Devil has prevailed, and she concedes. She packs her stuff and moves her act on down the road.

I watch the taillights of a Green & White taxi as it carries Miss White and her ten garbage bags of stuff into a darkening November Minneapolis evening. Damn, I hate losing a good-paying customer. Another company’s storage walls will hold the bits of Miss White’s wisdom. When I clean out the storage space she left behind, the walls are stripped of the Post-Its. There are no Emily Dickinson bits for me. The WD-40 has evaporated all the charm, and I am left feeling invisible.

2 years ago – Jaylene’s Hard Truth

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Proverbs 6:6

Here I deviate from stories about self-storage to consider a brief time in my retail days in a position that I was eminently unsuited for. Frankly, in the broad view of hindsight, I was outworked, outhustled, and outmaneuvered in ways that I could not grasp then and barely understand now.

Jaylene came to my store as a trainee. I had settled into the position of training manager, a post that fit my temperament. I had a command of the details of running a C-store and the ability to demonstrate them to new people.

Jaylene quickly caught on, and that created an enjoyable couple of weeks as she trained. The brother of one of our supervisors had recommended her. A detail that came up during her stay with me was that she and the brother had an extramarital affair. Not that it mattered to me; my goal focused on teaching her how to order milk, make bank deposits, and keep the help from stealing. I thought of her as a friend, a fellow traveler on the road to retail success. A couple of years after the training, our paths crossed.

In a stroke of brilliance or idiocy, depending on your view, the company promoted me to a supervisor position. Jaylene was moved from her now ex-lover’s brother’s territory and assigned to mine. Great, I thought, at least someone will be on my side.

There were a few bumps as I forayed into the world of mid-level management. Mind you, a store manager basically manages inventory and store cleanliness. If you don’t control a person’s salary, you are not really in charge. Supervisors held that power. I was in a new world and as a virtual babe in the woods subject to the wiles of the wickedly inclined. Theft, called ‘shrinkage’ in the business, was rife among the low-wage frontline workers and, to my surprise, among the better-compensated managers. Naively I thought otherwise.

If I could impart those qualities that made me promotable, I would be an asset to my team. To this end, I acted to replicate in my managers’ locations those same principles. To me, merely having fresh milk, neat shelves, clean grounds, and a reasonably kind attitude to your customers your store would excel. Simple stuff. To this end, I would get busy and fuss around their stores when I came around the territory. Thought I was helping. Giving an extra effort. Showing the way. Jaylene’s store, the closest to my home, became where I would end my day. Really helped her; the place looked terrific.

I found money for Jaylene. Her erstwhile friend and former supervisor had, due to incompetency, shorted her on monthly bonuses the two months before my taking over. I found the error, reported it, and she received the funds she had earned. Her hero, I thought.

As the ‘downsizing’ craze hit the country and ‘trickled down’ to the retail realm, the company decided to join in by reducing the supervisory staff. They selected me for this reduction despite, in my view, the superior performance of my stores, their cleanliness and neat stockrooms. “You’re hard to know. People don’t know where you stand,” the VP said as he asked for the keys to the company vehicle. Well, I thought, at least you can locate me sober on a Friday afternoon, unlike the two other beer-swilling jackoffs you decided to keep on board. I didn’t make that observation as the guy kindly offered me a manager’s position – I had a family to feed. A part of me realized that the manager’s role best suited my skill set.

To illustrate the ridiculousness of what I found when I took over the territory. One site’s backroom was so congested with extra merchandise that the staff had to use the twelve-foot-long gas dipping stick to turn on the circuit breaker for night lights. They couldn’t get to the breaker box, so they had to lay the stick over the boxes to hit the switch for the lights. A business platitude dispensed at the Monday morning meeting concerned inventory control – “We should strive to stock our stores so that we turn over the inventory in thirty days.” Right up my alley, my specialty – sell the merch before you had to pay for it. This was the starched shirt Monday reality. By Friday, loosened with afternoon cocktails a different approach – we get North Stars, Vikings, and Twins tickets if we order tons of certain items. Red-faced and feted in the suites of the soda, cig, and snack vendors, those meeting bromides faded into the fog of whatever it was that the schoolmarm harped on in their dream cowboy upbringings. I, on the other hand, while no stranger to the appeal of the ‘barley pop’ and the blandishments of the fawning vendors, ran tight ships. Emptied the storerooms. Didn’t have anything to hide on a Monday. As I shied away from the glad-handers and busied with detail work, I did not appreciate the difficulty it took to accomplish such deal-making. Takes a particular type of person, and I was not one.

Two years passed after my unsuccessful foray into the lofty upper echelons of the C-store world. I found myself seated next to Jaylene at a bar late at night during the annual vendor tradeshow/ company convention. Bold with drink, Jaylene gave me the straight dope. Despite my obtaining bonus money for her, assisting her in improving store appearance, and what I thought to be a friendship, she thought I was a prick.

.”What?” I managed half tight from an evening of free vendor-provided Michelob Golden Lights.

“You were a prick. Nobody liked you,” she said, not unkindly as she swirled the bottom half of a vodka gimlet.

Damn, Jaylene, I thought. His brother dumped you for his fat wife, he stiffed you on bonus money, and I helped clean up your half-assed store, and I’m the jerk!

In the forests of feelings, I have always been a gangly faun. I don’t blame those that can operate in this world. I admire their ability to do so and retain the loyalty of those who need them to be the way they are.

If there is a lesson to be had, what may seem easy may be more complex and taxing than it appears to be.

2 years ago The Two Kinds of People

“A Lannister always pays his debts.” Game of Thrones

Chasing down delinquent customers is often the most challenging part of a storage operator’s job. Nobody likes to do it. Technology has made the task somewhat more manageable with the introduction of voicemail, emails, and texting. In the early days, an agent would pull up the delinquent list, pound the numbers into a dialer, and prepare to hear the saddest stories ever told. Epic lies, empty promises, and frequent accusations of harassment greeted the agent. The most effective calls were those that set a deadline for a fee or auction with nicely worded threats. The same people showed up on these lists month after month, and they made the same promises.

One of our sites had been in existence since the 70s. I found a mimeographed newsletter in a drawer while poking around the office. Old-timers might recall that before the advent of photocopiers, documents were reproduced on machines called mimeographs. Often, the ink’s distinctive smell is identified with the dread associated with the school tests printed on them.

The weekly newsletter’s main article concerned the collection of delinquent rent. The piece began with these immortal words – “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who pay their bills and deadbeats.” No more accurate observation exists. Whether you are breaking the limbs of lower-echelon drug dealers who don’t pay up or sending airy messages to high-end business firms, the game is the same. Some just take their time and don’t mind paying the accumulated fees, while others must be more forcefully encouraged.

One such frequent rider on the deadbeat train, Audrey* managed to pay on the 20th of every month (rent due on the 1st). After a year of this and hearing a country music album’s worth of broken limbs, broken hearts, and broken lives, I came up with a bright idea for Audrey.

“Let’s credit her for a free month. That way, when she pays on the 20th, she’ll be paying ahead.” Easy, peasy. No more fees that apparently were more dead cats on the dumpster fire of her life.

“Won’t work. Audrey’s a deadbeat,” said Kathy, a hard-bitten skeptical gal who had been-there-done-that with scores of late payers.

“Well, I’m going to give it a try,” confident that my new-guy enthusiasm would help herd this misunderstood lamb of a woman back into the paid-up fold.

“You’ll see,” Kathy offered as she pounded numbers into the base of the phone cradled at her ear.

I saw.

It took just two months as Audrey cruised through the free month and, would you believe, found herself struggling to come up with funds on the 20th of the 2nd month.

Did Grandpa’s old Ford break down on the way to burying Grandma? Did Rover finally catch that old Pontiac and bite its fender off? Did bad whiskey mixed with piss-warm Mt. Dew send Brother Billy to the Emergency Room? Perhaps, but most likely, Audrey had reverted to her old ways.

Because, after all, that’s what deadbeats do!

2 years ago – The Saltfish

Ooh-ooh that smellCan’t ya smell that smell Lynyrd Skynyrd

Psychic income is a business buzzword that describes the emotional benefits of a given occupation. These benefits have no monetary impact but create an enjoyable experience. It may be by simply saving them money with a great unit choice. Or it may come from the appreciation earned by listening with a kind ear to stressed-out folks. In these ways, storage consultants can reap psychic benefits in droves. Another such benefit is the opportunity to meet people of different cultures. Sometimes though, cultural values can conflict with the expectations of renter behavior.

An effective storage manager can see, hear, and smell problems as they walk their site. A small bed screw spotted on a drive can save someone a flat tire. A rattle in a heater can lead to a maintenance call that fixes the machine before it breaks down. Lousy odors coming from a unit can indicate problems that are best dealt with pronto.

I managed a modern climate-controlled carpeted facility in Minneapolis. During my rounds, I detected an odd odor on the 2nd floor. Funny though, the smell would be present some days and some days not. A vexing problem because of the difficulty in figuring out where it came from. I had suspicions about a restaurant that I had recently rented to. They came in, checked out the unit, and assured me nothing was stinking in it.

Came a day when the odor was overpowering, and I was able to determine the offending storage unit. Because there was open space above the units for air circulation, one could look over the walls. The unit beside the suspect unit was vacant. I brought a stepladder into the empty space and, with trepidation, climbed up to have a look. As I climbed, I could see that the unit was packed, and there were things stacked higher than the wall.

One approaches these situations with reluctance based on the fear of what might be discovered as the source. The first thing I saw was the backside of a baby car seat facing away from me into the unit. Oh shit! I gingerly rose one more rung so that I could see if there was something in the carrier. Many thoughts, most of them horrible, swirled in my mind.

Nothing in the seat, to my great relief. I did spy a cooler on the floor and guessed the wretched smell emanated from it.

Back at the office, I called the customer whose name and accent indicated a West African background.

“There seems to be an offensive odor coming from your storage unit. Are you storing food in there?”

“Saltfish,” she said as if it was completely normal that someone would use a storage unit to store something like that.

“Saltfish?” I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. I had no clue about saltfish.

“Saltfish.”

“Um, okay, can you remove it? You’re not allowed to store food anyway.”

“Okay.”

She soon removed the cooler and the smell eventually disappeared.

According to Wikipedia, “salted fish, such as kippered herring or dried and salted cod, is fish cured with dry salt and thus preserved for later eating.” A practice abandoned in these United States a couple of centuries ago except, in a way, for the odd Yuletide Scandinavian custom of lutefisk. Something the Lutherans brought over with them. For reasons that no one understands, they still roll out the salted stuff along with weak coffee and sugary dessert bars in church basements across the Midwest.

Enjoying the pageantry of life, the splendor of diversity, and experiencing the wonder of new cultural customs is certainly a psychic benefit. But the stench from salted fish? Keep that one out of here

You’re Shifty, You’re Devious, and You Need Discipline

Big Orange Self Storage (BOSS), a powerful leading self-storage provider, purchased a company that employed me in the early 2000s. My forced union with these folks was an unwelcome and revolting development. Frankly, I could’ve handled the situation with a little more class than I did.

My main beef with BOSS was the $1 First Month sham promo – $1 plus a healthy admin fee, a lock, and required insurance. Not to mention the extra rent that you needed to plunk down to cover the pro-rated remainder of the month after the “$1,” or you’d get whacked with a late fee. Some thought the whole thing a little shifty…

Mother told you – “don’t sign anything until you read it.” Dad also chimed in on that, and so did just about everybody who ever cared to comment on the subject. But a person renting a storage unit is not a 1960s teenager with a hit record who’s about to get screwed when they sign the dotted line. For chrissakes, you can exit a storage agreement with a vacate notice or by simply moving your stuff out.

But some listen to Mother; they’re contract readers. They seem to show up right at closing time. And aren’t we the nice ones? The ones willing to hang late to make that sale. And don’t they know it as they pore over each term, each line. Every word, while the clock ticks off unpaid minutes.

Like Sharon*, some seemed to zero in on the discomfort of the clock-conscious clerk (me). Sharon might have been enjoying herself. She seemed to have a tough time understanding why she would have to pay for the small remainder of the upcoming month when, by golly, the ad said it would be $1. I won’t bore you with the explanation; suffice to say this Sharon wasn’t buying it. At issue was a measly $10 that I collected so she wouldn’t accrue late fees.

A few weeks later, I had all but forgotten the incident. The phone rings at the tail-end of a lazy Saturday. A woman who I don’t recognize is assailing me. She claimed we misrepresented our discount. She blamed me and said, “You’re shifty.” I’m amused and play along, offering a standard response. “We’re sorry you feel that way, but blah, blah, blah…rent is due. She then says, “You’re devious.” I’m struggling to recall what the hell she is referring to. I say to her, “Sorry you feel that way, but blah, blah, blah…company policy.

“You need discipline,” she says. In the confused silence that follows this statement, I figure out who I’m talking to. It’s Sharon. I remember her stern face and her seeming joy at my unease as she read every word of her storage contract. This is about that $10!

Or, maybe, this was an invitation to something other than a business transaction. This thought occurred in hindsight after I mentioned it to a few friends. If she had something kinky in mind, that was a notion that sailed over my head.

Although I was half out the door of the company I worked for, maybe I needed a bit of a thrashing for being lazy enough to stay there. Staying in a situation that turns you cynical and brings forth the sarcastic attitude I displayed with Sharon, something she sure figured out. Don’t waste your time and spread your poison where it doesn’t belong. When you sense you’re not on the same page as the organization you’re with – leave.

For my bad attitude, yeah, some discipline was in order. But shifty and devious? Dude, I was just following the policy.

posted previously on reddit, Tales of Self Storage

Gift of the Magi

“There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl.”― O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi

Passive-aggressive behavior is not confined to church lady luncheons as pop culture would suggest. From the smirk on the spiteful cashier to the flowery language of your late notice letter, it’s everywhere. In business, perhaps the most annoying example is the so-called compliment sandwich. The sandwich consists of three parts. An opening that points out something you’ve done well. There’s a middle that shames you for a mistake or poor performance with a close that throws in another nice word.

“Great work on the checklist this morning. I need to let you know if your monthly sales don’t pick up, we’re going to have to let you and the entire department go. By the way, I noticed your attendance record is awesome. Have a nice one!”

A gift is a form of a compliment. Christmas is the gift-giving season. Some storage companies roll out the old “Santa’s Closet” marketing ploy around the Christmas holidays. The idea is to offer a drop-dead deal on a storage unit – the customer can store their presents, away from prying eyes. Of course, the hope is the tenant will then procrastinate and hang on for a few additional months.

The thought that the unit itself would be a present never entered our minds until a young newlywed woman came in to rent one for her husband for their first Christmas. “It’ll be his present, a personal place for his stuff,” as she paid the rent and fees. All he had to do was sign the lease and pick up his shiny new lock! How thoughtful and lovely, a wonderful Christmas morning awaited her groom, a lifetime ahead filled with kindness and consideration. Finally, a place of his own.

The blushing bride’s twin score of a steal deal and a perfect present went unnoticed in the hustle and jumble of the joyous season. Not that too many customers took advantage of the Christmas Closet, in fact, the bride was the only taker of the fantastic promotion.

The season pushed past the 1st and into the new year. Daily business had cycled back to the humdrum norms – renting, calling slow payers, cleaning units, etc. The forgotten gift of The Magi (as I had come to think of it) came back into focus with the arrival of a visibly upset young man, a man of the cloth judging by his attire. Something other than the harsh Minnesota winter weather had flushed his face a vivid red. Purple-red, oddly accented by the purple vestment visible under the white parson’s color above it. Vengeance was to be his as he thundered his wrath upon us.

“You rented a storage space to my wife in my name!” he exclaimed.

“But, sir, she said it was a Christmas present for you,” I managed to say as I cowered on my desk chair. The heavens opened, and I trembled as his evident anger rained down.

“That wasn’t a present. My wife just did it to get my stuff out of her sight. I want my money back!” his right arm raised as if to ward off the Devil’s handiwork.

We didn’t usually offer refunds in such situations. As it was January 6th, they were well past the point of a typical refund time frame. But on the off chance that this fulminating bible dude had some sway with his Boss, I relented.

That calmed him down. As the placated padre left, he invited us to come see him on a Sunday.

“Thank you, that’s nice of you,” I said. I was thinking – not bloody likely. If you imagine you’ve tamed your passive-aggressive wife, you have a world of revelations headed your way.

Through the years, I’ve seen versions of the Christmas Closet with the same results. But if the promotion’s design is to create a little excitement in a slow part of the year, why not try it. You never know who’ll come in.

Bob the Bidder

January 6th is celebrated in some faiths as The Feast of the Epiphany, popularly known as The Twelfth Day of Christmas. Whereupon my true love gave to me…

(posted on Tales of Self Storage)