Long Beach Self Storage Topics

My Little Garden Shed

I know lots of people who use self storage for many different reasons. Some people use it temporarily when they're moving. Other friends have used it to get rid of some of the random stuff in their homes while they're selling, and others have used it long-term to store odds and ends that they don't need access to on a daily basis. Well, I have found one creative way to use a Long Beach Storage unit – as a garden shed!

I've always been a green thumb type of person, and I've always had at least houseplants. However, in my Long Beach home, I wanted to have a great garden. And I have the yard space for the garden – just not for the garden shed that I would need to keep all my tools and supplies in. My one-car garage isn't large enough to put all my gardening things in, either.

I guess I could build a garden shed in my fenced back yard, but it would take up the space that is now used by my wooden swing and the bird bath in the center of the hummingbird garden. I'm just not willing to give up those pieces of my little slice of paradise for something as mundane as a garden shed.

So in an effort to preserve my sanity by getting my gardening supplies out of my guest bedroom so that it could be, you know, a guest bedroom, I decided to do something a little different and have an off-site garden shed at the US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage facility.

I know that most people wouldn't think about using storage for something like gardening supplies that they actually use on a regular basis, but the truth is that there are lots of people who use storage for purposes like this. For instance, lots of construction and lawn care businesses use self storage as a place to keep their tools and supplies when they aren't actually being used. If lawn care businesses can keep all their gardening supplies in a self storage location, why can't I?

When I first came up with this idea, I wasn't sure if it would work very well. After all, I needed to find a really affordable Long Beach Self Storage location, and I needed to make sure it was accessible to me whenever I needed to get my gardening supplies. That's where US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage on 15^th came in!

The US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage location is pretty close to home for me, which makes it easier to access. Plus, when I went in to talk to the manager, I found out that they keep extended hours for the security gate, which means that I can get in during the evenings and weekends when I most need my gardening supplies and tools.

Paperwork Storage for My Daycare

I've been running a home daycare for years now. At first, I just kept a couple of my friends' children at my home for a few hours a day for a little extra cash. Three years ago, though, my business went full time. My husband and I actually rent a location in town for the business, now, and we employ several part-time daycare workers and a couple of full-time preschool teachers. I work in the administrative role, but I still love being able to see the kids learn and grow and to play a game with them once in a while!

The process of setting up a daycare is kind of crazy because there are all these government regulations to be met. And once you get all of that taken care of, there's so much paperwork! I have a file for every kid who has ever been through our doors, whether they've spent three years or three days with us. I have information on payments and receivables and bills and taxes and all of that paperwork.

While I'm a pretty organized person, even I was having trouble keeping all the paperwork organized because our daycare space simply doesn't have room for it. We have two classroom areas, which are the largest areas, a small separate dining area, my teeny tiny office, and a supply room where the teachers keep the supplies the children shouldn't get into. That's really it. It's plenty for us to keep our kids happy, especially since our space has a great back yard area!

But it's not really enough when it comes to all the paperwork I have to keep on hand. I mean, I still have the tax paperwork – every piece of it! – from that first year I officially went into business, and I'll have it for a few more years, at least, before my accountant says I can get rid of it!

So I was talking to one of the parents at daycare about this problem one day. She's a super organized person and also a pretty good friend of mine. She suggested that we check out off site storage for the daycares tax paperwork and other odds and ends. Obviously there's some paperwork I need to keep on site – like the files for the children who are currently enrolled – but at the very least, I could move all that tax paperwork out of my office and clear up some space.

I thought about her suggestion for a while, and then I started looking up storage places in the area. That's when I found the US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage location on Atlantic. As soon as I talked with the manager about what I needed in a self storage unit, I knew that it was the place I'd end up keeping my daycare paperwork. Here's why:

Figuring Out How to Organize My Freelancing Paperwork

I never thought I'd become a freelance writer. In all my years in college, I thought I would teach. But then, I got out of college, and there just weren't teaching jobs available. They'd told us when we were in high school that teachers would be in huge demand! Unfortunately, that just hasn't been the case.

So when a friend hooked me up with a couple of freelance writing gigs while I was looking for a job, I thought, sure, I'll just use it to make some extra money until I can find a job doing what I really want to do. That was about a year ago, and I'm still freelancing and no longer looking for a full time teaching job!

I really love working from home and working for myself. Plus, I'm making a lot more money than I would as a lower level teacher, even though I'm taking care of all my own insurance and business expenses and stuff like that.

When I first started freelancing, I didn't worry too much about incorporating or paperwork or anything like that. After all, all the records were online for tax season! Well, once I decided I was going to take it full time, my dad started helping me straighten things out from a business perspective, and I wound up keeping a lot more paperwork than I had room to store in my apartment! That's why I use the Long Beach Self Storage location on Atlantic to keep my extra paperwork in!

The Papers I Keep

As a freelancer, it's true that most of my income and many of my business expenses are tracked online, so they're always available for viewing. But I still get my cell phone bill and internet bill by mail, and both of those things have to go with my tax paperwork for the year because I can write off part of those expenses as a business expense. Also, sometimes clients send me specific paperwork and forms like non-disclosures that I'll print and keep for my own records.

Of course, this doesn't even begin to touch the amount of paperwork I keep if I'm working on a long piece based on interviews. If I do interviews, I usually hire someone to transcribe them. You'd be amazed at how many pages of transcription go into just your basic, everyday, twenty minute interview for a magazine article! And I keep all that stuff because I never know when I'll use it again – either for a completely new article or to get new ideas for future articles.

So between all the financial paperwork and all the client-related paperwork for different pieces of writing, there's just been a lot to deal with.

Long Beach – Storing My Furniture During an Overseas Assignment

I've always known with my current job that I'd eventually have to do a stint overseas if I wanted to move up in the company. It's fine with me! A six month trip to our European branch would give my wife and I a chance to experience the world a bit, and it would be a great way for me to step up in my career. The biggest problem I had with thinking about going overseas was figuring out what to do with all our stuff while we were gone.

My wife and I had only been together for a couple of years when my overseas assignment came up, so we didn't have a whole ton of stuff that wouldn't go to Europe with us. There were just a few boxes to store, plus the furniture we'd splurged on after our wedding. We had a really nice bedroom set and a leather couch, plus our kitchen table. What were we going to do with all that stuff when the lease was up on our apartment and we were moving to Europe for six months? My company would provide us with a furnished apartment once we were there, so we definitely weren't taking anything that big!

Luckily, a colleague of mine had done the Europe stint before, and he had a great suggestion for storing our furniture in a Long Beach Storage location on Atlantic. It was close to our current apartment and in the general area we'd probably move back into when we got back from our time in Europe. So, we decided to check out the Long Beach Self Storage location to see what we thought about it for storing our furniture.

As soon as we pulled off of Atlantic to see the Long Beach Self Storage location by US Storage Centers, we knew it was going to be a good solution. The location was well lit and clean, which was more than I could say about a few other storage areas I'd seen before! Once we talked to the manager, that sealed the deal.

Long Beach Self Storage - Clearing Out the Excess

You never realize how much extra stuff you collect in a home until you're ready to sell it. Then, you step back and think about how your home must look to potential buyers, and it's easy to be just shocked by what you see! That's what happened to me, at least, when it came time to sell our home in Long Beach!

There was just so much stuff in our home, including extra pieces of furniture that cluttered up corners and covered up the best selling points of our home. Right after we hired a realtor to sell our home, we decided to take time to clear out the extra furniture and such, and we put it all into storage. We figured we'd keep all our furniture because we would be moving into a bigger home, where we'd need the extra furniture to fill up the space, anyway.

So, we checked out Long Beach Self Storage locations and came across the US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage location on 15^th. It was really close to our home, which was convenient, and it was easy for us to get to. Plus, the location offered great prices and month to month leases – which was perfect because we weren't exactly sure when the house would sell and we'd need to get our furniture back out of storage, of course. S

The manager of the Long Beach Self Storage location was great. We talked to him at length about the types of furniture we were going to store, and he used his expertise to help us decide what the best storage unit size would be for what we needed. He even gave us some great furniture storage tips that would help make sure our furniture was in as good of shape when it came out of the unit as it was when it went into the unit. Here are some of the furniture storage tips he gave us:

• Break it down: I'd never thought about it before, but furniture takes up a ton more space when it's not broken down. That's why the manager said it would be a good idea to break down furniture as much as possible. We took the legs off our dining room table, took beds apart, and even took the dining room chairs apart. It made for more work, but it also made it simpler to store our things in a smaller space than we originally thought we'd need. 
• Cover it with cloth: Lots of people cover their stored furniture in plastic, but we learned this wasn't a good idea because it can trap moisture against the furniture, leading to mold and all sorts of other problems. Instead, we bought some drop cloths to protect the furniture from rubbing against other pieces and to protect the cloth furniture from dust and other debris. 

Keeping Things from One Kid to the Next

Generations ago, kids all grew up on hand me down clothes and toys. Now, some parents seem to think they love their younger kids less if they give them things that were used by their older siblings. The truth is, though, that most kids don't notice. Plus, if it comes down to putting in extra hours at work so your kids can all have brand new clothes and toys or spending more time at home among hand me downs, your kids would probably choose the latter. Knowing this, I decided to keep most of the things my first baby needed for the next baby, so we could hand them down and save money and valuable time. But without our Long Beach Self Storage unit, I wouldn't have been able to make this work!

When we had our first baby, we did buy most things new – or we were given lots of things. From the crib to the car seat to the bouncer seat, we had a fortune's worth of new baby gear in our apartment! It was great to be able to give our first baby that new-stuff experience. Plus, we knew that things we bought new originally would likely be in better hand me down shape for baby number two or three!

Unfortunately, we discovered how quickly our baby outgrew lots of her gear. By the time she was a few months old, the baby swing and bouncer seat no longer kept her occupied, and the baby gym was a thing of the past. By her first birthday, she had outgrown her infant car seat and had to be upgraded to a bigger one. As our daughter outgrew all this stuff, she grew into new toys and safety items. That meant we had double the stuff in our small apartment. What were we going to do with it until our next baby needed it in a couple of years?

We talked about a lot of different options, including selling what we had and just rebuying it down the road. That was going to be such a hassle, though, that we decided it really wouldn't be worth it. We even considered moving into a bigger apartment just so we would have enough room to store the baby stuff. Another option was to take the stuff we already had to my parents' house, but they lived five hours away, and that just seemed ridiculous. Finally, we came up with the idea of checking out a Long Beach Self Storage unit to store the baby's stuff in.

Hand Me Downs for Our Babies

Even though lots of people these days buy into the idea that it's important for every new baby to have new baby things – in pink for girls and blue for boys, of course – it's actually not a necessity. My wife and I never saw it to be a necessity, at least. We just thought that as long as our kids were all well provided for, they weren't going to care whether or not their older brother or sister had used the same baby swing or car seat a couple of years before. That's why we have a Long Beach Storage unit that allows us to keep all the items we have for one baby for the next baby down the line. With a family of six, that saves a ton of money in the long run!

We came up with the idea of renting a Long Beach Storage unit when our first son started to outgrow lots of the expensive baby gear that we had been given for him before his birth. We knew people had spent a lot of money on his gear, and we were really blessed not to have had to buy much of it ourselves. Still, we didn't want it to go to waste, and Jackson had only used it for a few months. Everything was still practically like new, save for a couple of nearly-invisible spit up stains! We knew we were going to have more babies in the future, so we decided to save all of Jackson's gear for the next baby. After all, everything he had was pretty much gender-neutral, so even if we had a girl, she'd be able to use the hand me downs from her older brother.

Unfortunately, we just didn't have extra storage space in our house for all of Jackson's outgrown baby gear. That's why we looked into Long Beach Storage and came across a place called US Storage Centers. The US Storage Centers Long Beach Storage location was exactly what we needed. They offered reasonably priced small units, had great security, and were neat and clean.

We knew we would only need a small unit because my wife is an expert at making things fit into small spaces. Somehow, she can just look at a space and organize everything in it so that the space meets its absolute fullest potential. We could fit most of Jackson's baby stuff in a closet-sized unit, but not ever storage spot in town offered units this small. The US Storage Centers Long Beach Storage location did offer smaller units, and their prices were great. Plus, we got to save even more money at first because of their first time renter specials, and in the long run, we also save money by paying for our storage unit automatically. We never have to worry about missing a payment this way!

Keeping My Rock Climbing Gear in Order

As a serious rock climber, I have every piece of rock climbing gear you can possibly imagine. It includes specialized clothing, a couple of harnesses, belay devices, and lots of different equipment for different types of climbs, including rappelling gear that I've just recently begun to use as I learn to rappel. That's not even to mention the requisite camping gear that comes with a serious rock climber's gear, since most of my trips take at least two days – if not an entire week, during which I do lots of camping and hiking as well as climbing. Without my US Storage Centers Long Beach Storage unit, I would definitely not be able to keep all my climbing gear in order.

Living on my own, I don't really need that much space, so I just have a studio apartment. There's barely enough room in my apartment for my bed, couch, cat, and cooking stuff in the kitchen – let alone the things I might need for a climbing trip. I might be able to keep some of my climbing stuff at my parents' house, but that would require clearing out space in their garage and trusting that my kid sister won't get into my gear when I'm not there – which is by no means guaranteed.

So, instead of messing with that, I just rend a Long Beach Self Storage unit through US Storage Centers. The Long Beach Self Storage unit is great for a few reasons. It's cheap. It's close to my apartment. It's easy to access. It's secure.

When I first hit on the idea of getting a storage unit so that I could move my climbing gear from my parents' house, I knew I didn't have a ton of money to play around with. But I also knew that I wouldn't really need all that much storage space for my climbing and camping gear. After all, when you can keep things organized and store stuff up to the ceiling, it's not all that difficult to fit a ton of stuff in to a relatively small space. I looked around until I found the US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage location. They had great everyday prices and some good specials going on, so that was the first thing that drew me to them.

Also, of course, the Long Beach Self Storage location was close to my apartment. That was pretty important to me, too, since I needed to be able to get into my climbing gear without driving a long ways away.

Also, the Long Beach Self Storage unit is really easy to access. The manager explained that I can get into my storage unit even when the office isn't open as long as it's during gate hours. Since the gate hours are pretty extended, this isn't really a big issue for me. I can get into my unit pretty early on a Saturday morning for a day trip, and if I'm going away for an extended climbing trip, I can easily get into my unit the night before to get my car all packed up and ready to go.

Year-Round Sports Storage

When you have multiple kids who all play multiple sports, the result is a ton of sports equipment in your home, garage, closets, car, backyard – anywhere you can actually put sports equipment, and probably a bunch of places you shouldn't put it. Luckily for my family, our Long Beach Self Storage unit by US Storage Centers came to the rescue when we needed someplace to put all this random sports stuff. What started out as a way to store equipment in the winter became a year round storage solution for my family.

Basically, in my house, we have sports going on throughout the year. The problem, of course, is that not all these sports take the same equipment. Sherry and Jack play softball and baseball, which takes more equipment than most other sports. You would be amazed at how hard it can be to find a decent place to keep a couple of stuffed-full bat bags in the off season! Sherry also plays soccer, which doesn't come with as much stuff, but her soccer goal only needs to be set up in the back yard during the summer and fall. Jack, of course, also plays basketball and runs cross country – two sports that overlap. While neither takes a ton of equipment, it's still extra stuff to deal with.

This isn't even to mention all the extra junk we haul with us to all the outdoor sports festivities. We have collapsible coolers, huge coolers on wheels, small lunch boxes for away games, tents for long softball and soccer tournaments, umbrellas for regular games, blankets for late in soccer season, seat pads for cold bleachers. You name it, and we probably have it in order to make watching our kids play all these sports just a little more comfortable.

So when all this extra sports stuff for the kids started taking up way too much space in our home and garage, we needed a solution – and we needed it quickly because I was seriously on the verge of losing my mind from always stepping on baseball bats and tripping over cleats and kicking basketballs in the middle of the night!

Lucky for us, we had friends who had a Long Beach Storage unit at US Storage Centers, and we decided that this would probably be a good option for us, too. We were looking for someplace very affordable; we already pay a fortune for all this sports equipment, so we didn't want to pay yet another fortune to store it. The US Storage Centers Long Beach Storage location is very affordable, especially since we can cram almost all of our extra sports stuff into a relatively small sized unit.

Storage During a Kitchen Remodel

Remodeling is just one of those things. You really want to do it, especially if you've been envisioning turning your current home into your dream home for the past few years, but when it comes down to it, remodeling is a huge hassle! There are a few things that can make it easier, though, and one of them, as my fiancé and I found out this year, is having a storage unit like the one from US Storage Centers Long Beach Self Storage to use during the remodeling process.

We've owned our home for the past five years, and we knew when we moved in that it was going to need some major renovations. Seriously, the kitchen features orange countertops and Formica floors! Plus, the layout of the entire kitchen is just all wrong, which is terrible since we both really love to cook. What with trying to save up money for our long-awaited wedding, though, it's taken us a while to be able to start our kitchen remodel!

We're finally getting started, but the beginning of this process was a mess. What were we supposed to do with all of our good china and cooking gear while we were remodeling? It could have all been boxed up and put into the living room, but why clutter up more than one spot in our home when we didn't really need to?

A friend suggested we check out a Long Beach Self Storage facility called US Storage Centers, and it was a brilliant suggestion. We checked it out the next day and decided to rent a Long Beach Self Storage unit during our remodel. That very weekend, we went in to rent a 10x10 unit and buy packing supplies for all our kitchen utensils and such. The managers were very helpful in getting us the right type of unit and all the packing supplies we would need to get almost everything out of our kitchen.

Getting Through Our Mini Flood

In August of 2008, we went on a family vacation to Seattle to see my parents. It was a great vacation – until we got home to discover that one of the major pipes in our home had burst. It left much of our home water damaged and literally swimming. It was really awful! Of course, we called the insurance company right away, but we couldn't stay in the house when it was like that. Without the help of our insurance company and a Long Beach Storage company called US Storage Centers, we never would have made it through that difficult time!

Our insurance company was really great, and they picked up the tab for all of the expenses related to the cleanup and replacement of our items. The problem was that by the time we discovered the water, mold had set in. We weren't allowed to move back into our home for weeks while the mold remediation company ripped out drywall and cleaned up our home in general. We also needed to get as many of our things out of our home as possible, which is why we turned to Long Beach Storage.

When we found Long Beach Storage by US Storage Centers, we were really having a rough time. After a couple of sleepless nights and what seemed like entire days on the phone with the insurance company, we simply couldn't make decisions on our own anymore. Luckily, the friendly manager at the Long Beach Storage location helped us decide on what type of unit we would need, and she also helped us figure out what kinds of packing supplies we would need to get our home packed up and ready to go into the storage unit.

We ended up renting a 10x20 storage unit on a month to month basis. Being able to rent month to month was great because we really had no idea at that point how long it was going to take to get back into our house. The mold remediation process was set to take a few weeks, but after that, we still had to wait for the carpet to be put back down, the painting to be finished, and things like that to get done. For all we knew, we could be out of a home for two months or six months! We just really weren't sure!

Garages aren’t just for holding your cars anymore. They’re not just the places to put your dusty old softball bag, your old VHS collection or your boxes of old things from inside your house. This is the garage of the past, and it’s the way that too many people have wasted a perfectly good room in their houses. Though this might seem to make sense – to use your garage primarily for storage – it makes far less sense than it would seem and the people with Long Beach self storage facilities know the difference.

If you have a friend with a Long Beach self storage unit, chances are that they don’t have a garage that smells like old collectibles, is cluttered with dust and dirt and just doesn’t feel like the kind of place where you would want to hang out, eat a sandwich or spend some of their free time. When you have a cleaned out garage, you can do all of these things in your garage, and all without worrying about the extraneous objects getting in the way or ruining the atmosphere. Long Beach self storage units can help solve this for you, and you can find them at our Long Beach self storage locations.

You can get to a Long Beach self storage location from almost anywhere in the city, and you will be able to reach the Long Beach self storage unit in just minutes from nearly anywhere in the city. With your Long Beach self storage unit just miles away, you will have the freedom to load and unload your items as quickly as possible, and whenever you need to move your things around. Your Long Beach self storage unit is your answer to all of your problems, and it will change your garage from something that is just used to hold your car – into something that you can feel good about showing off to your friends or hanging out in.

Even if you are using your garage to store your car, a Long Beach self storage unit can be practical for making things easier for you and your car. If you have a Long Beach self storage unit, you can move all of the things sitting on shelves, lying on the floor and hanging from shelves. With all of the heavy, dangerous or clanky items moved to your Long Beach self storage unit, you will not have to worry about getting accidental dings on your car. You can open your car door freely without slamming it into something, and you can move around your garage without worrying about accidentally dropping something onto your hood, your windshield or you car door. Long Beach self storage areas make a difference, and they will change the way that you do things in your garage – and maybe even in the rest of your house.

Some people might think of Long Beach as the epitome of Southern California or Orange County. It’s packed and expensive, and it’s a place that can be difficult to find enough space at the right price. And for college students, this problem becomes even more demanding. If you are a university student in the area, solutions may not seem aplenty, but one in particular can have you unwinding and unloading your packed college life.

Long Beach storage centers and Long Beach self storage units can be your answer to a crowded college situation. A Long Beach storage facility can offer you a cheap place to store your belongings, and the various Long Beach self storage facilities give you a chance to make your moves between years and between semesters all the easier. If you are a student at a number of the area colleges, you can find yourself within a short drive of a Long Beach storage area or Long Beach self storage unit.

Students from Long Beach City College, Newbridge College and DeVry University can reach the Long Beach storage unit in just minutes. In addition, students at other colleges – like Charter College, Pacific Coast University and Cal State Long Beach – can find themselves quickly reaching their preferred Long Beach self storage facility after just a short drive. Your Long Beach storage area or Long beach self storage room can be the very thing to pull your college experience together, and it can keep you organized like few other resources.

With your Long Beach storage unit or Long Beach self storage facility, you will reap all of the benefits of a truly cleaned up college experience. You won’t be spending time looking for things, you won’t be loading up multiple cars everytime you move, and you won’t have your room crammed with old books and things that you don’t need. Your Long Beach storage unit can be an answer that you’ve been looking for, and it can make the stressful experience of college or moving just that much easier. Long Beach self storage is the answer, and your Long Beach self storage unit can help you from convocation to graduation. From summer to fall, from intramurals to music class, your Long Beach self storage can be the answer for any student.

Long Beach Self Storage

The City of Long Beach, California encompasses 65.9 square miles with 15.4 miles along the ocean. Long Beach is the 7^th largest city in the State of California and the 39^th largest city in the United States. The weather in Long Beach is moderate year round. In the summer months low clouds and fog may occur overnight but lifts by afternoon. Winter months tend to be rainy.

Based on 2010 Census statistics, the population of Long Beach is 462,257. 

Long Beach home to several high-tech and aerospace industries such as Boeing, Gulfstream Aerospace, The Bragg Companies, Laserfiche, U.S. Epson, Inc., Pioneer Electronics, and Verizon. Other major employers include SCAN Health Plan, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, St. Mary Medical Center, and Long Beach Unified School District. All existing companies in Long Beach and potential businesses opening in the area would greatly benefit from extra space for storage.

Due to the number of high tech and aerospace companies located here, these jobs have a high rate of turnover with employees being hired and relocated.   Individuals that are in the stages of moving in and out of the city are prime candidates for requiring personal self storage during their transition stage.