Hoover Dam and Lake Mead are monuments to the principle of storage. As Las Vegas waits for the drought to end, the saved up water behind Hoover Dam is part of our investment in saving for a not-so-rainy day. At American Mini-Storage, we endorse the philosophy of storing rather than trashing and keeping for future use rather than doing without. In that spirit, here are ten items you should keep on hand in your Las Vegas storage unit. 1 – A 72-hour kit Many people recommend keeping a 72-hour kit in your home in case of power outages, natural disasters, or other emergencies. 72 was chosen as the magic number since in most disasters that is the amount of time you can expect to be on your own until help arrives. An extra 72-hour kit in your storage unit is a good idea if you can’t get back to your home. 2 - Your fat clothes/winter clothing Do you really like having your closet stuffed to the walls with clothes that you hope to never wear again but deep down are afraid you might? Last time you threw your fat clothes away. Buying new fat clothes is such a downer. It is much easier just to bring your old fat clothes home from your storage unit for a visit—because it’s only temporary, right? Also, why share your closet with clothes you will only wear when you visit your family in Winnipeg? Store them until just before your annual trek to the land of frigid temperatures. 3 - Holiday Decorations Why keep all of your seasonal decorations in your home and underfoot eleven months out of the year? Put them somewhere safe and out of the way. The Halloween decorations will be right where you put them. When you are finished with trick or treating, the trick is to put them right back into storage. Easy. 4 - Back up documents What would happen to all of your important documents if you lost your home to fire or if your 4-year-old discovered how to use your paper shredder? Digital backups of your documents are a great idea if you have the tech savvy to create them. But even if you have digital backups, an extra hard copy could prove valuable if you lose or misplace your original hard copies. 5 - Sentimental Items with no real value There is a good reason to store these items off-site. When you trip over that box of your childhood memories or find the box of your kids’ refrigerator art taking up space that you want to use for something else, you may be tempted in a moment of anti-nostalgia to throw it all out with the trash. Regret eventually follows in about 3 or 4 days and your impulsive decision then becomes a tragedy. Keep those items safe. Store them in your storage unit. 6 - Family heirlooms The logic behind this is the same as your sentimental items. These are items that have been in your family for generations. Your siblings expect you to keep them safe. But it’s such a pain to keep your kids out of grandpa’s beer stein collection. Somehow they find the box and take them out to use them as toys; and they are too strange and ugly to display in your home. (The beer steins, not your kids) Keep everyone happy and take them to your storage unit. 7 - Your ugly sweater We understand. In a moment of misguided creativity your wife worked for endless hours knitting you the ugliest Christmas sweater ever. She expects you to wear it every year. Seal it in an airtight garment bag and put it in storage with us. Hide it in a box under your fat clothes. You can claim you lost it. She will be heartbroken. Then surprise her in a couple of years and wear it to her office Christmas party. 8 - Embarrassing items to hide from your kids Maybe you don’t want your kids to know that you were a successful Elvis impersonator or that you have ticket stubs from 48 midnight showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show from 48 states. We all have items we don’t want our kids to discover until they have kids of their own. They still might not understand, but at that point you can have a good laugh about it. 9 - Anything you haven’t used in 6 months OK. Sorry. This isn’t a specific “thing.” But if you haven’t used something in 6 months, are you really willing to share your living space with it? Take it someplace safe and put it in storage. 10 - Water And here we are; back to water. Recently, a large community near Salt Lake City was out of water for nearly 72 hours. Water in stores was gone in hours. Having a 3-gallon water container full of distilled water and a case of bottled water in your storage unit could make life more comfortable during such an emergency. Once you have your own Las Vegas storage unit, you will wonder how you lived without it. In many cases it isn’t a luxury but a necessity. Come check out your new unit today.
