Tips For Storing Your Home-Damaged Goods

Your home was recently damaged by fire, floods or winds, but you have managed to salvage much of the contents. The challenge now for you here is how best to keep your goods secured while your rebuild. It may take months before you can reoccupy your home, therefore finding a safe storage place for what you own is important.

Option No. 1 

Keep your items in your home. If your home is otherwise secure, meaning you have a roof over your head and doors and windows can be locked, then your house may serve as the ideal place to keep your goods. You may need to move some items around if even partial exposure to the elements is possible. A garage or a shed may be the convenient place for storing your stuff.

Option No. 2 

Remove your goods out of your home. With a home exposed to the elements and security issues abounding, you need to find a place where your items can be safely stored. You have a number of options, including an off-site storage facility, a friend’s home or garage, or a storage pod on site. The on-site storage pod may be the best bet especially if you do not want to send your goods off your property but you still want to provide a safe place for storage.

Preparing Your Items For Transport

Regardless of your choices, you need to prepare what you own for transport out of your home. Here, you have some important options at your disposal.

Option No. 1 

Hire a moving company. You can hire movers to take what you own away in their trucks and store it at their facility until you need them again. This option means that someone else is doing the heavy work, but you will pay handsomely to have your items stored on site. An alternative here would be to have the movers transport your goods to an off-site storage facility.

Option No. 2 

Move it yourself. Quite easily, you could rent a truck and remove everything you own yourself. Get estimates from various truck rental companies, choose a service and ask your friends for help. Then, store what you own in a climate-controlled storage facility.

Option No. 3 

Rent a storage unit. Those portable storage units you see everywhere may be the perfect place to keep your items safe. Instead of having what you own removed off site, the unit would be delivered to your home, set up in your driveway or on your lawn, and then filled with your goods by you. The advantages here are obvious — what you own remains on your property and you can access these goods when you need them. You may need permission from your municipality to house the unit, but that is typically given especially if you had a recent emergency.

Storage Tips

When you are ready to store what you own in your portable storage unit, call on your friends to assist you. Here, you will set aside time to move what is in your house to you unit outside. Look for people with strong backs, but do borrow a hand truck or two to help them out.

If something is soiled, such as furniture due to rain damage or a fire, have a cleaning company come to your home first before you store these goods. Once the affected furniture is dry, then and only then remove same to the storage unit, otherwise you risk mold setting in and damaging your other goods.

No one can anticipate an emergency, but how you respond will go far in enabling you to put this challenge behind you. You have several options, now explore what works best for you, getting multiple estimates and checking references before you make your decision.