Living in a Storage Unit 1 week challenge

Drew_Scadoo

Anyone have problems with this new fad?? We personally do a walk through every day and have eyes on each unit at least once through out the day. I happen to love this idea and hope it grows because I know we will find out about it and we will not be prorating there rent HAHA

Orkocean

Have not heard of this challenge, where did you see it? If I ever have the slightest hint someone may try staying in a unit or breaking rules to the point I would terminate their lease I point out the rules very detailed and mention if you break them you will be gone and you will NOT be receiving any of your payment back.

Drew_Scadoo

I heard it when I was on campus recently and I googled it and youtubed it and found some things from this year so maybe it is a thing. There's one video where a guy gets Taco bell delivered to his unit! 

Orkocean

So I looked it up and only found one video which looks to be some young entitled youtube wanna be guy. Driving a tesla, planned to go buy an "electric generator" since you know, gas would be an issue inside. Nice to know extra space somewhere has a manager oblivious enough to allow this kind of bs to go on. 

Drew_Scadoo

@Orkocean Here is an over view one, of a few that is just absolutely hilarious to watch 

https://youtu.be/MkJFcJ7kddI 

ESS

Just wondering why nobody is watching the cameras there, looking at their gate logs daily, or actually doing hall checks. I could easily catch both of these guys within my first hour at work

skinman

Uhaul.... Bet that manager loses his/her job...

Orkocean

The one guy in that video who has the full on setup in his unit is old, I remember watching it about 6 or 7 years ago I think. It always amazes me how clueless some managers can be or just don't care. I covered a site years ago for one of the higher ups to have a day off, within the first 30 mins of being at a site I never worked which was an all indoor climate control facility I found a lady living in a 5x5, while talking to her she brought up she had been there for a week already and the other managers never said anything to her so she thought it was fine. 

Ever done a mystery shop of a site and had a manager just hand over the keys and tell you a general direction of where the unit is to go look at? My DM got to enjoy that, said he was like a kid in a candy store opening up all sorts of units to inspect stuff. The old lady working was too busy watching tv to give a tour. That was a facility in Kemah @ESS.

ESS

@Orkocean O.M.G!

Drew_Scadoo

@ESS Right!! First hour easy

CVSSSTORAGE

I am amazed by this as well, we have sign in logs and before I am off I always walk the property and check all halls. Every car that comes in close to closing time gets a head count. I had a man try to stay one night. When they came in I saw 3 guys in the front seat of a truck when the truck left there was only 2 guys in it. Went to his unit and sure enough there was the 3rd guy in his unit with it cracked a bit. I felt so bad for him but I had to tell him for his own safety he could not stay in his unit. If there was an emergency he would be locked in the gate and emergency personal would be locked out. We haven't had too many people try to live in their unit, thank goodness

Orkocean

With this current site our windows pretty much overlook the entire property so we always look out them as it gets close to time since we're usually in their cooking dinner then and if it's close one of us will walk out and "remind" them of the $200 after hour fee. Havn't had one push the time yet other than one who's battery died on his truck and was waiting on triple A so I gave him a break on it.

LinderISS

Yes, I saw this video and hoped it wouldn't catch on.  We have however, had a tenant rent a Climate control and found out it was where he practiced his drums.  Another tenant put a net at the back and was practicing pitching.  Of course, there are the tenants who LOVE our uber clean bathrooms and choose to use ours for grooming etc.  (yeah, the etc. is what worries me)

CVSSSTORAGE

@Orkocean
a $200 after hours fee?! Ours is $15 for every 30 minutes over

Orkocean

Yup, $200, $100 for tailgating, $50 for smoking. Cleaning varies from $200-$2000. Want to train your tenants to not even consider breaking the rules, make the fee's so high they would never consider it

teamcapitola

My favorite

New tenant, here literally 2 days. My employee finds unit unlocked during walkthrough, opens it per SOP (to see if abandoned etc..) guy is sound asleep inside with door closed.

"I wasn't sleeping, I was meditating.... and you are infringing on my civil rights of religion by saying I cant!"

Sherriff's office disagreed.

Orkocean

I had a guy in Miami when I was covering a sight who I could hear snoring ACROSS the building. It was a maze of aisles so when I finally found the source during the walkthru the sight I came up on was a big bellied older male half in/half out of his unit laying on a cart with his shirt fully undone and sound asleep. I tried waking him numerous times, even fully banging the side of my clipboard on the wall before finally getting him to wake up. Once he was awake I let him know he had to go and went back to my office. He tried coming into the office raising hell with me, threatening etc. and saying he wasn't sleeping. I told him I tried waking him numerous times before he finally woke up and he called me a liar so I pulled my phone out and showed him the nice picture I took of him fully passed out. Idiot tried playing mr nice guy then and blamed it on meds etc.. Told him he needed to walk back to his unit and get his items out before the end of the day cause at this point he's lucky i'm not calling the police on him for threatening to shoot me. 

Drew_Scadoo

@teamcapitola Thats the funniest thing I've heard all day long  

SimplySpace

Orkocean said:

Yup, $200, $100 for tailgating, $50 for smoking. Cleaning varies from $200-$2000. Want to train your tenants to not even consider breaking the rules, make the fee's so high they would never consider it

We have been looking to impose fines as well, but need to add the verbiage to our contracts. Do you have any special wording or can it just be as simple as adding "Tailgating fee of $100" to the "Additional Rental Charges"? 

Orkocean

Our fee on lease is as below:

11th Day Past Due - Late fee applied for each month occupant fails to pay the monthly rental charges.

If rent is between $0 - $60 monthly, $10 is occupant late fee.

If rent is between $60.01 - $100 monthly, $15 is occupant late fee.

    If rent is over $100.01, the occupants late fee is $20 or 15%, whichever is greater.

    $25: 14th Day Past Due - Prelien fee is applied to occupant account for each Prelien letter mailed to the occupant and alternate.

    $25: 28th Day Past Due - A lien sale notice with opposition will be mailed by certified mail to the occupant and alternate.

    $80: 31st Day Past Due - Lien processing: lock cut ($25), inventory ($25), and "notice of sale" published in local newspaper ($30.) 

    $_______ : Administration Fee - A singular non-refundable fee due at the time of move in that occupant agrees to pay.

    $30: Insufficient Funds Fee - This fee is applied for each bad check returned. See NSF CHARGES for more information.  

    $25: Lock Cut Fee - Charge for any lock cut needing to be done. 

    $30: Missing lock Fee - If occupant has failed to lock space after 24 hours, owner can apply a new lock & charge occupant.

    $50: Smoking Fee - Fee applied for occupant/occupant aquantances for smoking any substances while on the facility grounds.

    $50: Tailgating Fee - Applied any time occupant enters or exits the facility without typing their code.

    $100: Other Code Fee - Applied to occupants account when using any code other than their own. See ACCESS for more information.

    $200-$2000: Cleaning Fee - Fee applied for any time owner’s agent has to clean after occupant/occupants aquantances. 

    $200-$2000: Dumping Fee - Fee applied for any trash/items left on facility grounds or in/around dumpster.

    $200: After Hour Fee - Applied any time occupant doesn’t exit the facility on time. 

SimplySpace

Thank you for that! How often do you enforce the tailgating and other code fees? We have thought about adding those, but don't have that issue too often since we have door alarms. 

Orkocean

I've never had to enforce really any of them. I stay on top of my people and if I see something I will go speak to them as soon as I see it and have a nice "Chat", as long as they're not aholes about it I give them the 1 and only warning and it never happens again. But the fee's are there and in writing so should I need to I can and the fee's are high enough to be a good deterrent so no one even thinks to try and push it.

SimplySpace

Got it! I feel like people respond pretty well when you catch them in the act and talk to them. Might be a good idea to have it in the contract just incase. If we have repeat offenders we raise their rent substantially rather than fines, so I'm just curious which would work better for us. 

JamesStorage

@Orkocean After reading that I feel generous about the timing lol. We do a $20 flat late fee at 5 days past, A $50 pre-lien fee at 35 days and the auction/advertising/lock cutting at 55 days for $125. And the unit doesn't officially get auctioned until it hits 81 days. It takes forever to have a unit go to auction for us.


As far as people sleeping in the unit, that's an automatic lease termination according to our rental agreement. Few people have tried to test it.

Orkocean

@JamesStorage if I get everything sent as soon as possible I can get an auction sold when they're in the 60 day range. But with us being anniversary date I schedule my letters every 2 weeks so I don't have to make constant trips to the post office so they range in 60-80 day range

SimplySpace

Orkocean said:

Yup, $200, $100 for tailgating, $50 for smoking. Cleaning varies from $200-$2000. Want to train your tenants to not even consider breaking the rules, make the fee's so high they would never consider it

We have been looking to impose fines as well, but need to add the verbiage to our contracts. Do you have any special wording or can it just be as simple as adding "Tailgating fee of $100" to the "Additional Rental Charges"? 

Orkocean

Ours is just in that section for the basic fines/fee's as listed above.