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.

Now for somrthing completely diffrent

Here is a quick fun fact! We got power to our new sign

 

So what is so fun about this fact you might ask

 

The answer is in the 21 years that I have been working in storage I have asked electricians a thousand times (maybe 10 times in total) to add an electrical outlet to the outside of buildings signs and polls.  In 21 years they always forget to do such a little thing and I end up running extension cords all over the property.

If you look to the bottom of this sign, this magnificent most tricked out sign I have ever been blessed to work with, you will see an electrical outlet.  Such a small thing and such a large time saving, frustration removing gift. 

 

And in other news ...Yukon gets over run with wild turkeys!  Ok, ok, it was only two turkeys but this was in town by the post office.  Not exactly what I expected.

The Lights 2012 night one

The first night at the Christmas Lights at the Park was last night and it went pretty well.  The night started out warm enough but by 10:00 it did get cold.  Once again I got out of the cold by donning the Rudolf costume and running around for three hours acting like an idiot, but I got a lot of smiles from kids and adults alike.

 

Now not everyone was as warm as I was. Linda and Josh had to find their own places to get out of the wind.

 

The City of Yukon goes all out to make this the best light display and every year you find new lights.

 

 

As I said before if you get the chance to come down to Yukon and see the lights make it happen, you will not regret it. If you come on the 20^th be real nice to Rudolph.

Wow its Christmas and all that!

For you that do not live in the Yukon area, let me invite you to swing by if you can.  The city of Yukon puts on one of the best Christmas light shows I have ever seen. This year there should be over 4 million lights. Yes that is over 4,000,000 or you could say there is a bunch.   It looks something like this…

 

 

 

 

 

On Thursday Linda, Josh and I will be volunteering at the park to collect donations. Last year we looked like this

 Josh was cold…

 (could not find a picture of Josh... Man that is odd)

 

Linda was cold…

 

I was Rudolf…

 

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.

 

Time For Another Auction

For the last two months we have been working on another auction.  Between the two stores we had a good dozen units going into auction status.  16 days ago when we sent the ad into the paper we only had 6 left.  That is not bad. Six units that paid up, or paid and moved. Paid and Moved is when a customer Knows they are never going to pay off their bill, so they offer 51% and get their stuff off the property.  The average that I try to achieve is 33 cents on the dollar so if I can get a bad unit emptied and still make 50 cents on the dollar I call that good. 

All good things do have to come to an end .  When we reach the cut lock day if the customer has not taken care of their debt then it goes to all or nothing. We had 6 units that had reached that point. 
One week out Linda got one of her units to pay up. That’s nice 5 units a good number for an auction. Then another unit pays up and I start thinking if Linda keeps this up we may lose this auction….. Let’s think about this…..  Linda gets people to pay up at full price, which is better than a pay and move and a lot better than 33 cents on the dollar at auction.

So we ride for a while with four units, not a great number for an auction, but livable.  Then it happened, the two units that were going to auction at my property both were paid off the night before the auction.  $1000.00 in the bank and we don’t have to take the risk of going to auction.  I could really get use to this.  But… this leaves only two units left.

Tuesday morning I get up and go have breakfast with the men’s group at church. When I get back home the phone starts to ring. People want to know what is left for today.  Two units we tell them, and then the call happens.  One more unit is coming in to pay up.  With 50 minutes to go one of our tenants comes in under the wire. We are down to one. At this point I am rooting for our last tenant to magically appear and pay off… it did not happen.

10:00 comes and we have 6 bidders and one unit. Oh yes!  the whistler came back and actually behaved himself.  It looked like this from my point of view.

 

And it looked like this from their point of view.

 

The end story is that the one and only unit that went up for sale today brought in $190.00 and the whistler did not stay in the bid for very long.

 

In one way it was a very lonely bid sheet. On the other hand we made bank through this auction process and the on unit  went for 55 cents on the dollar. Not bad all the way around.

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.

 

Look Who is back

 

Two days later and look who’s back.  Pole, hole digging equipment and cement were all present this time. They even had a crane to lift the pole into position. When I looked out my window I could even see some markings of the UCIC workers who marked the utilities. I placed a call a call to Deb and informed her that that the sign guys are back and they are working.  This made everyone happy.  I figured as long as I did not show my face or interrupt in any way, we might get a poll today.

 

I did sneak out from time to time to see how things are going, but I keep my distance. It takes them most of the day to get the poll up.  By the time that John and I were pulling money from the Car Wash the cement was just starting to go into the hole.  I asked John if it would be ok for me to go to the foreman and tell him that I just got off the phone with my boss and he said the pole is in the wrong spot. John thought for a moment and said lets just wait till they are gone and then we can move the poll to some other part of the property.  There is something wrong with us that makes us want to poke the tiger with a stick. 

After they left I went to get a close up of the work. Remember the underground utilities markings that I was seeing thismorning? Well the markings were no where near the hole.

Here is a bit of interesting facts, or a story of timing.

An e-mail confirmation has been sent to you. 

 

Today I noticed a large pole sitting on a truck out by the street. It looked like this…

 

Since I did not know that the new sign was coming in, I went out to check out what was happening.  I met the closest thing to a foreman. He introduced me to the boss, who did know all sorts of facts.  The sign is going to look great. Well I left the group and called the office.   I got a hold of Debbie and started asking too many questions. (I have a way of doing that, in fact I really need to do something about that).

After talking to Debbie and Don for a few minutes, we needed to check if they were digging in the right spot.  You would think when they get to this point everyone would know exactly where the pole is going.  In the six weeks since the check was signed I have never seen anyone on property measuring or checking anything, so double checking may not be a bad thing.  Well get a load of this story. 

 

I started asking questions about the location and the foreman guy started acting a little weird.  One he would not stop working when I asked if we were in the right spot. Even the fact that where they were digging was busting up the concrete.  My statement to them was that my boss thought it was going to be on the south end of that parking area.  He tells me I should talk to his boss, so I went to talk to his boss.  Guess what, he wasn't there anymore he was on his way to another town. I make it back to the foreman and he has his guys filling in the hole and packing up.  What is up I asked. And he said that since I didn’t want the pole here that he was canceled the cement and they were leaving. I asked if a 20 ft difference was worth canceling the job over and he jumps into my face.  Very strange moment, this guy moves in pretty dam close to my face and yells- do you know if there is a gass line under the ground, well do ya! ( I would love to say I calmly answered him back) I raised my voice and say that as a matter of fact I was not a gas line expert and I had no idea what was under the ground.  So he and his guys left.

 

 

Jump ahead 3 hours,  it just so happens that the guy who marked the utility lines for this project is a tenant of ours and he stopped by the property on a storage run.  Well John and I got to talking about this incident and showed him were they were digging.  It comes to light that where they ordered the survey was at the complete opposite side of the entire strip mall.

 

  These guys were digging in an area that was not marked and were very close to some high pressure gas lines. If they had continued to dig they could have been fined a bunch of money or hit a line and blown themselves apart. Tomorrow morning I will be letting my bosses know.  My wife Linda pointed out that sometimes God works through conflict to save us from even worse fates.

Robert Reynolds
321 S CEMETERY RD
YUKON, OK 73099-6441
United States