Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Storage - my experience

By Brendan Hill
SK Oakleigh, VIC

I would never have thought Storage would be an issue in my life. Who would?

In the past 3 years I’ve had 3 major experiences, one, when my mum passed and dealing with her Estate fell to me. One when I applied for a part time job and found how hard it is to get past being over 50 and most recently when putting my home of 18 years on the market.

The first of these was stressful. I had lost my mum and had to deal with her property as her Executor. It wasn’t easy to decide on the distribution and dissemination of property I was acutely aware she had loved for a large part of her 92 years. When it all got too hard I opted for the seemingly easy solution of short term storage to give me time to deal with the logistics and my emotions. Short term soon became a monthly account and a problem I really did not want to deal with until one fine day my beautiful wife looked at an account over my shoulder and said, “What on earth are you still paying that for?” Needless to say once Management was on my tail I dealt with the balance of the property within 14 days. It just took some motivation and a kick in the butt.

The second experience was stressful. I had closed my own business and needed to find part time work to keep cash flow coming in to pay the bills. Applications went in and were ignored. Some were responded to and a few even lead to interviews but it always seemed I was not quite what they were looking for. Funny how being over 50 and having a very strong background in business management seems to make you unsuitable for part time work! Finally I got a call from a lady at Storage King who said she’d like to meet me to discuss an application I had sent in a month or so earlier. One thing led to another and you now find me at Storage King Oakleigh 3 days a week and I am grateful for the opportunity afforded almost 2 years ago now.  I had the motivation I just needed the opportunity.

The third experience is stressful, and is happening right now. Our family is grown and gone and the 5 bedroom monstrosity is just too big for she, me and the dog. We’ve already bought the new place and have had to face up to a de-clutter and facelift for our home so lovingly untouched for 15 of the past 18 years. Two mortgages, the question of how much to spend on “dressing” the old ranch and the sheer enormity of addressing the eclectic collection of items from a large and busy part of our lives is daunting to say the least. First thought as a Storage Professional: “I need to get rid of what I no longer use or need and store the things I want to keep but are getting in the way of marketing the house effectively to prospective new owners”. So a storage unit is rented and we are racing towards a date with an auction somewhere around mid-October. We have the motivation. We need the income to start exceeding the outgoings.

So I now have experience with Storage on several levels and know that it is often a solution to a very stressful time. It has provided me with security, comfort and opportunity at times I would not have coped without it. It has given me the time to develop the motivation I needed to deal with change in my life. All in all these are pretty powerful things we offer our customers.


Beware who you call “a Storage Professional” lest you flatter them!