Storage - my experience
By Brendan HillSK Oakleigh, VIC
I would never have thought Storage would be an issue in mylife. Who would?
In the past 3 years I’ve had 3 major experiences, one, whenmy mum passed and dealing with her Estate fell to me. One when I applied for apart time job and found how hard it is to get past being over 50 and mostrecently when putting my home of 18 years on the market.
The first of these was stressful. I had lost my mum and hadto deal with her property as her Executor. It wasn’t easy to decide on thedistribution and dissemination of property I was acutely aware she had lovedfor a large part of her 92 years. When it all got too hard I opted for theseemingly easy solution of short term storage to give me time to deal with thelogistics and my emotions. Short term soon became a monthly account and aproblem I really did not want to deal with until one fine day my beautiful wifelooked at an account over my shoulder and said, “What on earth are you stillpaying that for?” Needless to say once Management was on my tail I dealt with thebalance of the property within 14 days. It just took some motivation and a kickin the butt.
The second experience was stressful. I had closed my ownbusiness and needed to find part time work to keep cash flow coming in to paythe bills. Applications went in and were ignored. Some were responded to and afew even lead to interviews but it always seemed I was not quite what they werelooking for. Funny how being over 50 and having a very strong background inbusiness management seems to make you unsuitable for part time work! Finally Igot a call from a lady at Storage King who said she’d like to meet me todiscuss an application I had sent in a month or so earlier. One thing led toanother and you now find me at Storage King Oakleigh 3 days a week and I amgrateful for the opportunity afforded almost 2 years ago now.  I had the motivation I just needed theopportunity.
The third experience is stressful, and is happening rightnow. Our family is grown and gone and the 5 bedroom monstrosity is just too bigfor she, me and the dog. We’ve already bought the new place and have had toface up to a de-clutter and facelift for our home so lovingly untouched for 15of 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 eclecticcollection of items from a large and busy part of our lives is daunting to saythe least. First thought as a Storage Professional: “I need to get rid of whatI no longer use or need and store the things I want to keep but are getting inthe way of marketing the house effectively to prospective new owners”. So astorage unit is rented and we are racing towards a date with an auctionsomewhere around mid-October. We have the motivation. We need the income to startexceeding the outgoings.
So I now have experience with Storage on several levels andknow that it is often a solution to a very stressful time. It has provided mewith security, comfort and opportunity at times I would not have coped withoutit. It has given me the time to develop the motivation I needed to deal withchange in my life. All in all these are pretty powerful things we offer ourcustomers.
Beware who you call “a Storage Professional” lest youflatter them!