The Marx's Brothers

Guardian Storage was visited by some people whom must have failed the I. D. 10-T test. We will introduce Harpo,  Zeppo and Groucho.  That is right the Marx’s Brothers where right here on the property and what a show they put on. 

Groucho and Zeppo called in to find out if there was a parking space available for rent. It seems that Zeppo’s offspring had totaled one of the family vehicles and they needed a place to put it for 30 to 60 day until they could make it go away permanently.  Zeppo had called his good pal Groucho to help him drag this smoking wreckage across the state to the Guardian facility.  Well, being good friends and desperate for a rental of course we said yes.

When they arrived they elicited the help of their third friend Harpo.  After looking at the package that was once a car Harpo asked how they got it on top of the trailer in the first place.  It seems that Groucho and Zeppo had used a come-along to slowly drag the car up on trailer, but there was no real plan on getting it back off.  The major problem it seemed was the driver’s side front wheel was almost snapped off and had no control of where it went. Three of the four tires were flat, the drive train was busted and the engine was in no condition to turn over again.  How could the Marx’s Brothers ever get this hunk of junk into a standard parking space?  Well it was Harpo’s idea to park the trailer in the middle of the space use the come-along to get the back wheels on the ground then drive the trailer out from underneath the car, effectively dropping the broken and twisted wreckage into the space.

After hooking the come-along to Harpo’s car to give a solid base to pull against, the team watched as Groucho started wrenching the car to solid earth, but something went wrong.  As the straps were pulled tighter the wreck did not move but Harpo’s car did start to lift. No matter how much the team pushed, pulled or used engineering terms the wheels of the damaged car would not turn.  Twenty minutes our trio scratched their heads till finally it came to them….  Release the parking break. 

Yes at that point the car rolled, with just some minor coaching from Zeppo, off the trailer and into the parking spot.

You would think that I would have been rolling on the floor, tears flowing from my eyes as I observed this story unfolding.

Ah, but alas I have met Harpo and he is me…..

Some days it just doesn’t pay to be a Bob.

Auctions 2013, we work hard to make them small.

Auction Day!!!!  Another chance to sell other peoples stuff to pay for debts owed.  That sounds kind of cold doesn’t it? The cold hard fact is, that is exactly what it is.  If you do not keep up you monthly payments a self-storage company can sell your stuff, but that is not the end you want.  If cash gets tight and you get behind the first thing you need to do is contact the manager and find a way to get caught up. Remember a working payment plan will keep you out of an auction only if you keep working it.

So where do you start when you need to save your stuff from auction?  The first and most important step is to choose your Self Storage Facility well.  You may feel more secure with a big name nationally known company, but the bureaucracy that comes with the big company can often keep the managers from being able to work with you.  Owner manager facilities mean that when you talk to the manager you are talking to the decision maker. Smaller companies tend to trust their managers more and you get to deal with decision makes again.

What can you do if you get into trouble? Payment plans is always a great way to get back on track.  A pay and move is a technique that is as close to a cut and run as you can get.  The moment that the manager says auction status, you offer 50% to 60 % of what you owe and you get yourself out a.s.a.p. That storage company gets more money than an auction would bring and their unit back that they can rent again. When all else fails a letter of abandonment is a polite way to walk away.  When you just walk away because the amount owed is too much not only do you lose your stuff but you make the storage company go through the auction procedure. Please remember it was not the managers’ fault that you got behind, so don’t take it out on them. The letter of abandonment will allow the manager to do with the space as they see fit. They can throw it into the next auction or throw it in the trash; it does not matter because you have given them the permission to do it.

Remember the managers are just people trying to follow the laws and make the owners happy. By treating them nice you can make life easier on yourself.

If all else fails and auction happens make sure that the storage company has your updated contact information.  Many times auction buyers will leave photos and important documents behind and without good contact information you won’t know if any is left. Another thought is that on the rare occasion your unit sells for more than you owe that money goes to you, but only if they can find you.

As for our auction day it went off without a hitch both units at my facility were paid off the night before so I ended up with nothing to sell. Linda started with four or five units and ended up only selling two. Not a bad day for auctions .

Auction and More

It has been a long January and the truth be told I have not felt like blogging …. Sorry…. But I am back with lots to tell.

First let me tell you the first and most important thing will have to wait till anther time … and again sorry… but now for the fun parts.  Auction time is coming!

 

In the last auction, we had two of the units get bought back less than 24 hours before the auction.  It seems like most of the units that I have seen saved at the last minute end back on the auction block.  Why this is I can only surmise, one if it takes you to the last second to raise the money to save the unit once, you will probably not be able to do it twice.  Once in Pasadena, we had the same unit go to auction 3 times before it finally sold. What a waste of money.  There is another type of personality that thinks that if they only pay for the storage when it is going up to auction, then they have saved the three months of rent.  I have had customers try to explain this theory to but I just don’t get it.  I don’t think Dave Ramsey would understand it either.

My auction is the 19^th and where I hate the prep work for an auction, auction day is always fun.

Another big change is I have merchandise to sell.  This is cool on several reasons. First is the long range foot traffic that will build as we get to be known for moving and packing supplies.  Another reason is the instant impact that people will have when they come into an office and it looks like a real store.

Oh Yea...

Something I totally skipped on and it is important.  The sign company came back the third time and finished the sign installation.

 

I had planned on making a lot of hoopla about this, but as in life things happened. 

Now some of you may say “yes it is a nice sign, but is it really necessary to have such a big flashy sign as this for a mini storage”.  I would say yes!  The bigger and flashier the sign the better it is for the mini storage.  As it sits now the sign wasn’t up for two hours and someone came in the office, said hey I was driving by and saw your sign, and then they rented a space. The sign doesn’t even have power yet.  That is just plain cool.

 

Here is Job Security

I have had a fairly quiet day Tuesday.  There was enough free time that I got the commission report done early and straightened the office a bit.  Around 3:00 in the afternoon I went out to dump the trash at the Car Wash and found this.

 The walls were totaled as bad as the floors

 

It appears that some guys who have been working on the roads used the car wash to clean up.  Bay one was filled with tools and gloves, bay two had uniforms and boots, and I am not sure what was in bay three but it too was filled with road tar and gravel.  Now I do not blame these guys for making such a mess, in fact I want them to come back.  Providing a place to get things clean is what we do.  Not to mention they were out in the bays for 30 to 45 minutes.  Constant use of our bays for that much time means they spent some good money with us.  (after pulling in the cash on Wednesday, bay 1 & 2 totaled more than $50  in quarterdcombined)

The sad fact what took them 45 minutes to use took me 2 ½ hours to clean up.  I wish there was a way to do that kind of cleaning without leaving that kind of cleanup. 

 

Now a fact I knew was reinforced ,  within two minutes of getting the last bay clean a truck pulls in a uses the car wash.  The fact is a clean car wash is what people want  and the cleaner we keep it the more they will use it.

 

What happened to Bob

Boy, am I off my game.  For the last two days I haven’t swept a space, clean a car wash bay and my typing speed has been cut in half. 

 

 What could have happened on Wednesday to make such a change in my performance?

 

I had surgery to help my ulna nerve to get it back into place.  As far as surgeries go, not so bad. As far as scars go …  well it’s a good one.

It also makes blogging kind of hard.

The quick version is Nerve blocks are good, a wife to take care of you is good and being able to go back to work the next day is good.  Also being able to call in Andrew to help keep the place looking good was real nice.

Patience can be a pain in the ass

Here is a nice picture of the kiosk that sits in front of the office. For the past month and a half, the printer has been on the fritz.  It started one day when a customer made a payment and the receipt kept printing.  I had to go out and turn the printer off we had already rolled about 20’ of paper out of the machine.  From this point on the printer stopped working.

I called the kiosk company and quickly found out they have field techs that can be on site instantaneously.   The reality is I am their field tech because they do not send one out… So the origanal phone call goes something like this.

Me: the printer does not work.

Them: what is it doing?

Me: not working.

Them:……………

Me: Uh, there is no power.

Them: What was it doing before the power stopped?

Me: Continuous printing, over 20 feet of paper without printing anything you can read.

Them: It is a communication cable problem.

Me: But there is no power.

Them: We are sending you a new cable call us when arrives next week.

Me: But the printer is not working now.

A week goes by and the communication cable shows up, so I call the company and they politely (they are very nice people) tell me to install the cable and to call them back. 30 minutes latter I finally get the cable in.  This cable is held in by 20 + zip ties. I call the company back and they say…

Them: Now turn on the power.

Me: The power switch is on.

Them: Can you see the test page?

Me: ….No… there still is no power.

Them: We will send you a new printer.

Me: And that will fix the power issue.

Them: And we will send you a new power supply.

Me: Thank you

Them: It will arrive in about a week.

It did arrive in a week but I was on vacation that week so two weeks later I call the company and say I have the printer now what? 

At this point I am going to stop typing the dialog because the installation of the new printer and new power supply took a couple of hours and several calls.  It was not very fun and there was a whole bunch of zip ties that had to be cut.  This is the point I realized they did not send any zip ties to replace they ones that had to be cut.  Duct Tape to the rescue.

This time when they asked for the power to be turned on it did come on. And the printer started spitting out 20 to 30 ft. of paper.  Almost four weeks have gone by and we are back to the original problem.  I stand out at the kiosk for another hour while they run test to no avail.  The answer is “We need to do some research on this”.  The following Monday I call back to follow up. “Hey guys it has been a couple of days have we figured out anything on this printer situation”.  The answer is that I need a specialist to call me and to work this problem.  The truth is I have needed as specialist to come over to the property and fix this printer four and a half weeks ago…..  Wednesday of last week I got a call and was talking to the specialist and he loaded drivers and reloaded drivers, he tested the printer and he retested the printers. He even would hang up the phone because what he was trying was going to take a while then he would call back and test the printer and retest the printer. Finally in the end 5 and ½ weeks later I have a working printer.

 

This is a look at the final days testing of the printer aftermath.  I have seen the inside of that machine just a little too much.

Time to head home

Woke up this morning to say our goodbyes, a bittersweet time.

 

 

The path out of town is not very straight. We first stopped off at the Hat for lunch, By far some of the best Pastrami on the planet. No photos, the pastrami did not last that long.

Next stop was Space Bank Mini Storage, We had a nice talk with my old General Manager Mike.  His claim to fame is that he knows everyone , and he will be the 2016 Tournament of Roses President. 

 

To say that it was a different place to work is an understatement. One of the owners is the founder of the Pasadena Museum of California Art.  So you never know what  you will see hanging around.

 

 

The office I started in.  It has had a face lift since I started. The original office was what was left over from the Navy. We upgraded to this configuration in 1998.  The oldest photo of the property hangs in the office.  The best guess is that this would be in 1950’s or early 60’s.

 

After that we stopped at Trader Joe’s. Once again no photos we were too busy shopping. Since Oklahoma Liquor laws are keeping Joe out of the state, we will stock up on 2 buck Chuck whenever we get near a TJ’s.

By this time we have hit the heart of rush hour traffic (which starts at 2:00pm and last till 8:00, 9:00 and sometimes 10:00 pm). It was not as bad as it could have been but 45 mph on a 5 lane highway was the top speed and a complete stop was quite often.

 

Traffic is not one of the things I miss.

 

 

Since we were moving slow I got a nice shot of the back of Vasquez rocks.  For you out there that may not know Vasquez Rocks is the famous location where Captain Kirk Defeated the Gorn Captain in the original Star Trek series. Also there have been thousands of westerns filmed out there.

The end of the week

Our stay here in Southern California is coming to an end. This day started off wonderful pancakes and bacon, then a nap on the couch with my grandson.  Naps with babies are the best. Now it is time to start packing.

Yesterday I took Josh to the beach and we had fun in the morning. Some of the waves got bigger than Josh but not many. It was a good time for pop and son.

 

Funny thing about the beach, even on a Thursday morning during school you can find people on the beach having fun.  This morning we had to walk around a wedding on the beach.

Later we had the family over and Stef and Tommy’s living room was over taxed. This is a small showing of the family.

Lunch with the family has been known to go over 50 and holidays are just silly.

Anther look into the life of Bob

This was an interesting day for a Bob.  We have made it to California, got one good night sleep under our belts and started our adventures. When in Southern California visiting family, what is the first thing you should do?  Go get haircuts! 

Linda has been going to the same person to get her hair cut for 25 years and when we are in town she gets an appointment.   This time we have a shaggy boy named Josh and the lovely Stef whom all need trims. It was a fun morning telling stories, catching up, and making everyone look stunning

 

Me, I was the designated driver.

Day two on the road

“Wow we are not in Kansas anymore”!  Ok, I know we drove from Oklahoma, but this is only Arizona and we have not even reached the So. Cal pricing yet. I didn’t think I would miss $3.65 a gallon. 

 

Here is the best thing about driving the 40, it really isn’t the best thing but it is in the top 5, 

 

In-n-Out.  Ahhhh, a Double Double Animal  style, that’s good eating.

 

9:30 to 10:00 last night we made it to Stef and Tommy’s and Micah was up to greet us!!!