When we moved out of the home we had occupied for almost 20 years, we left in a hurry. 20 years of household items got shoved into three storage units. I managed to get the stuff down to two units right away, but then life got in the way and I got settled into ignoring the units until we needed something.
There was a break-in early last year. Some damage was done but mostly it motivated me to get in there and straighten up the units. We got to the point where it was obvious that we could consolidate, but we needed to find help and hands to do it. Then we got notification that the price of the units was going up $200 a month per unit. This motivated me.
We went in and took almost everything out of the unit that we were planning on keeping. Then we started moving the big stuff we’d be keeping into the unit we knew we’d need to keep. We put the stuff that we were getting rid of into the unit we’d be letting go. We worked for hours and lost track of time. We ended up throwing everything back into the units to address on another day.
I contacted a friend of the family who does dump runs and he suggested that I rent a U-Haul since he was too expensive for the trip to the dump that I needed. So, it took me a few weeks and then I finally found a spot on my schedule and I reserved a U-Haul truck online. I gathered the troops and planned the trip.
Pickup at U-Haul was awful. Nowhere to park and they double booked the truck. I managed to get the keys before the second person arrived. She almost started a fight, but I told her that her issue wasn’t with me, it was with management. We were not off to a good start.
We went and threw out so much stuff that we hadn’t needed in all of the years that it had been in storage. I rented a smaller unit and put the stuff that we were keeping but wouldn’t fit into the single larger unit into it. The U-Haul was full and I felt accomplished after we made it to the dump.
I had to go back a few more times to finish emptying the large storage unit we weren’t going to continue to use. On the last day, I went to the kiosk to cancel out the account. The person that I spoke to told me to just leave the unit open and she’d take care of the rest. I got calls for a few days from other people, letting me know that the unit was empty and they wanted to know if I knew it. Yes. I emptied it and reported it closed. I was worried that they would continue to bill me. They did not, thankfully.
I do hope that one day I can find a place and put all of the stuff from storage into a home. Until then, I’ll be storing it for safe-keeping.
bookworm at the gym 