Be aware of the following (long term renter). Owner says he can't (won't) negotiate…read more 1. Changing Prices National self-storage companies use a system called "revenue management" to set their prices. At the national storage conventions, owners take classes about how to use this software to increase revenue by raising prices on customers. What is revenue management? This practice is what airlines and hotels use when they quote you a different rate for the same flight or room based on demand. Big storage companies do the same thing, reassessing their prices hourly. This means if they only have one 10 x 10 unit at the moment you check, it might be priced at $200 a month (compared to $100 last week). You can get the same unit at a company that is not using this software for much less. Why are they doing this? To make sure they are charging you the highest price they can get away with to maximize their revenue. 2. Increasing Rent All the Time When you sign a contract with one of these companies, you think that you've locked in a price for the rest of your lease, right? Not true. Almost all contracts in the self-storage industry are month-to-month. This means they can increase your rent at any time with a 30-day notice. National companies increase rent for current customers frequently, oftentimes twice a year. So, a unit you thought would be $70 per month suddenly costs you $115 per month. If you stay a year with that new rate, you'll be dishing out an extra $540 you hadn't budgeted for originally. 3. Charging High Fees National self-storage companies often reel you in with attractive pricing or a special but get you with fees. You may think you're paying only $70 per month, but wait, there's more: Admin fee ($20-$30) Lock charge ($20-$30) Late fees ($50-$60 for more than 30 days late) Deposit fee ($25-$45) Those fees add up, especially if you stay in your unit for a long time. Your bill inevitably ends up being much larger than you initially planned. 4. Ripping You Off with Insurance The big storage companies try to squeeze every possible penny out of you. One of the ways they do this is by requiring you to buy their storage insurance. While it seems like it adds value for customers, storage insurance is just an additional revenue stream for storage companies. Often, the insurance provider is the self-storage company. Other times, it's a third-party provider that gives the storage company a monthly kickback for selling policies. Public Storage automatically enrolls you in its insurance program, and you have to opt-out later to get out of it. They don't even offer good coverage. When you try to make a claim, you'll find the policy is selective in what it covers. Storage insurance is just an easy way for national storage chains to make an extra $15 to $25 per month from you. In fact, most renters have homeowners or renters' insurance that automatically covers items they've put in storage without additional cost. Our experience in managing 5,000 storage units is that it is very rare -- under 1% -- for something to happen that affects the contents of a storage unit. If you wrap your furniture in thick plastic wrap available on Amazon, and pack all your other items in plastic crates with tight lids, you will avoid almost all of the possible incidents that can affect your contents. That effort would eliminate rodent damage, mildew, and water damage, plus protect against absorbing the smell of the unit. The only thing left that could happen is theft. You have dropped your risk to .1%. Let's look at what would happen if you somehow incurred a loss: If you buy their insurance and stay for two years paying $25 extra a month, and if their policy covers the damage you incur, you have paid $600 for the insurance plus the $100 deductible. So you would have to experience over $700 in damage for it to help you. Do yourself a favor and spend $100 on packing supplies and rely on your homeowners or renters policy. 5. Making You Buy Their Expensive Lock Unfortunately, most national storage companies require you to buy their lock for $15-$20 (or more) instead of providing one to you free of charge. You can get the same lock at the local hardware store for $6.

So easy to register online. Spotless 5x7x8 unit, perfect for OOS student at UMD-CP to store larger…read moreitems for summer. Made our end of year move so much easier! Thank you!

I really liked how friendly the staff are. If you are late on a payment someone (a real person!)…read morewill call you to give you a friendly reminder. Also, I was VERY impressed with the price. NO ONE in town could beat their prices and the fact that everyone was so nice and helpful there just made it all the more better. Plus, they have everything you need to move (moving carts, supplies, tape, etc.).

Very easy Rental as I am OOS. Rebecca the Assistant Manager…read morewas great to work with. Moving my University of Maryland Student and roommates thing tomorrow. Rebecca is working so I expect no issues.

this has to be the cleanest storage I ever used . the customer service was great . it was easy and…read morefast to rent I was able to keep up with my payments online and make payments as well . you can set your move out dates . like it's great! I also love the fact that staff walk around and check on the customers and check the property. aprie was amazing explained everything clear and showed us to our unit . if you need storage trust this it

Always clean! App is AWESOME! Staff is very friendly. Storage units are easy to open and close…read more 10/10 recommend!!!

absolutely wonderful experience in july and now december 2024!!!! i cannot praise god enough!!!!…read moresafe place for belongings & very kind and patient representative!!!! he's deserves a raise or part ownership!

Replace the staff. It's hard to believe that businesses during the climate we are in financially…read moredon't make sure that every facet of their business is providing great service. Poor customer service is the biggest turnoff for a customer. Enough that we would leave your business and take our business somewhere else, even if it costs more money. Your staff's phone matters are worse than a collection agency. I missed a payment by mistake, and called to talk to someone. Her attitude was the worse. Wouldn't tell me her name, or the location. I was able to track down the location, and here is my review of that location. Your front people represent your business, you may want to check to see how they are presenting your company.

I used this facility to store boxes as I got ready to move, and it's excellent. The place is…read morespotless, and I'm pretty sure all of the units are climate controlled. A couple of folks have remarked about the customer service; I don't know if they've had a change of staff but everyone I interacted with was extremely helpful and polite. When I purchased boxes, Rose helped me load them into the car. The security is thorough: you need to punch in a code specific to you to enter the gate, and then again to enter the building. My *only* complaint is that you don't have 24/7 access to the building - it's open every single day, but the gates shut for good at 9 pm. For those of us that are night owl packers, that's kind of a bummer.

Although customer service experience at the location has been pleasant, the overall experience…read moredealing with this company has been detrimental due to their abusive corporate decisions. In the course of 2 years, company decided to raise my agreed rental rate 3 times for up to 50% more than initially agreed. After confronting the manager, I was told this is out of their hands since corporate decides when and how much the rental increases occur. Instead of moving my business elsewhere, manager offered a smaller unit at a much lesser rate, taking into account that "rate will not increase for at least a year and even if it does, increase will be marginal". Trusting this company I decided to go ahead with the downgrade. To my surprise, less than 4 months later I receive ANOTHER RATE INCREASE NOTICE!! This time the increase would be for more than 50% starting next month. This increase like all the others happen for NO JUSTIFIABLE reason. As expressed by many others, this company has a long history of PREDATORY BILLING PRACTICES. They purposely wait for you to be settled with your storage to increase your rates, not by a marginal amount but increases of over 50% of your agreed rental agreement. I appealed this with their superiors in writing but they failed to even respond. I am now in the process of starting to take legal action against this company and needless to say I recommend everyone to stay away from this corporation completely!

This place is garbage. First the pics are fake on Yelp. It is far from clean. It's completely nasty…read moreand disgusting. They increase the rent by 40% every 4 months. They tell you to move to a bigger unit to lower rent then 4 months later it is increased. The elevators work occasionally. The temperature control doesn't work. It's very dim in the building in certain areas. There is never carts available and trash is always lying around. I wouldn't waste my time or money. They make the front lobby look nice but the rest of the area is nasty and outdated. It's not a safe area. Pick a newer storage place. There are so many nearby.

From my experience so far with this contee road branch, I'll recommend Public Storage to anyone…read moreseeking a safe stash away for their stuff. Martha was amazingly helpful, the facility was always clean and serene (rather than spooky). Irrespective of cost, the value of anything is in the quality of its production. The service here gets an A from me (being modest).

Extremely friendly and they even remember who you are. Professional and courteous which is hard to…read morefind these days in customer service. Crystal is amazing don't get rid of her! Thank you

My husband and I rented a unit with the intent of only having it for 3 months. Unfortunately, our…read morecontractor went under and we had to pick up all the pieces, which means we had our unit for nearly 4 years! We signed a paper contract when they dropped off the unit, although I don't really remember signing a contract. But then 3.5 years later, they sent us a digital contract and asked us to sign it. But because I don't remember the paper contract, I refused to sign the digital contract. Even though we were paying every month on time for the last four years, they refused to give us one more month with the unit because we refused to sign the contract. Additionally, after returning the unit, my credit card was charged two months in a row, and I had to call the company to get a refund on my credit card. I would recommend the business because the delivery and pickup of the unit was simple. But everything else involved with renting this unit, I don't recommend.

My moving experience was amazing due to American Portable Storage!! Their communication is…read moreimpeccable and they were prompt and friendly and very reasonably priced. Highly recommend!!

I'm using Zippy to store my stuff while I'm renovating my house. They delivered the shell on…read moreSaturday. The guys came to load it and they called ahead to see if I'd need any packing material. Showed up in time and we were done in under an hour. They were nice and professional and definitely knew what they were doing. I'll report back on the other side when my stuff is retuned but so far so good!!!

This business is truly trying my patience. When I first…read moresigned up with zippy...it was mostly okay. I remember scheduling the initial delivery of the shell about a month in advance (kudos to me for planning ahead because I'm more of a last minute chick). It took me a few days to get in touch with someone to actually confirm they were still coming since i hadn't heard anything...AT ALL. About anything, like logistics or if I wanted to use their movers, how long I thought I would be...NOTHING. BUT we were able to get it squared away and the move was pretty simple. So, okay, no biggie. NOW I'm trying to get my stuff out of storage and I've been calling for about a week AND HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO REACH ANYONE!! I would like to have my stuff moved in before Thanksgiving...but at this rate I'm not even sure if it's possible. Hopefully this is my last big move for a while but the lack of communication and disorganization of this company is friggin ANNOYING. just stay away...find another pod like storage company to work with...customer service means a lot to me and unfortunately it doesn't to zippy. I'm