Why is there not a 0 star option?! This place hasn't even earned half of one from me! Long story short: my unit began leaking within 24 hours and the management did not help!
I am moving back to San Diego right now and needed to put some of my things into storage. Since I am unsure of where I'll be going at the end of 6 months, I decided to chose a storage place with easy freeway access that wasn't very far from my current apartment. That is how I came upon this particular public storage.
On Friday I met Veronica, the property manager, who showed me the unit. Everything was clean and looked like a standard 5x10 box. I filled out paperwork, signed up for insurance and purchased a lock for my new spot. So far, so good.
On Sunday, my family came to help me move early in the morning. This location has carts that you can check out from the front desk. Unfortunately, the front desk doesn't open until 9:30... and it was then 9:20. We see a worker go into the office, so my dad goes to ask if we could get a cart. The man tells him that he'll need a key for that... and then proceeds to go back to his car and sit in his car until 9:30. In the meantime, we manage to move all of my stuff without the cart. Thanks for the help, guy!
We come back with another load to move in. This time the guy is in his office and gives me a key. By the time we are done, he has already gone on his break. I guess he needs a break every 50 minutes or so.... so I just dropped the key in the mail slot and drove off to San Diego.
On Monday, I came back up to Los Angeles with an SUV to move my remaining things. I met up with a friend who told me she was interested in using my bookcase, so we traveled to my storage space to get it. When I opened my unit, I found the bookcase covered in water! It had only been in the unit for just over 24 hours, so I went to the front office to see what they could do to help. The first response from the manager was "do you have insurance?" Not "let me check out the leak" not "I'll call maintenance immediately"... "do you have insurance... so I said yes and told them that I had moved in the day prior and the unit was dry. They tell me that I probably hit the fire sprinkler when I moved (which is 10 feet off the ground). They tell me that I can always move into another unit, but I would have to do that within the next 15 minutes, since the property gates would be closing at 5:45pm. I ask them if they will be contacting maintenance tonight to fix the leak. They inform me that they don't want to bother the owner so late to get to maintenance. Jose, the other manager, tells me he is willing to go see if that was what happened so he follows me to my unit.
When we get to the unit, he gets dripped on and notices that it isn't the pipe that is leaking, but rather the ceiling is leaking! My unit is on the second floor of a 3 story building- so it was leaking through someone else's unit to get to my unit! Jose explained that it was probably from the rain and asked if I had a tarp.
"Why would I have a tarp? I am storing indoors!" I say to him. He tells me that he'll see what he can do for me and goes off ahead of me. I go wait for him outside as I am upset and need some air. He comes back and tells me that he has another unit available, so I follow him to look at it. This unit is clean and dry, but then again, my unit was clean and dry when I moved in, so this clearly means nothing at this point. Still I ask when I can move into this different unit. He tells me that the property will be closing soon, but I could come back tomorrow. I explain that I now live in San Diego- 150 miles south of this storage place. I can't just come up on a Tuesday- and with their hours of operation (6am-6pm) I don't think I know of anyone who could help me mid-week. His solution is to offer to personally help me move my things... on Friday. Again, I remind him that I am living far away and would need to see if I have that day available for moving. But since the leak is happening now, even if I moved on Friday, that is 4 days of leaking getting on my dresser, vanity, tempurpedic bed and boxes of school papers. I need a solution now.
Jose gives me a king/queen plastic bed cover to use as a tarp for my things. I put it over as much of my stuff as I can, while getting dripped on. I ask him if he will be contacting the people in the unit above me- he said he would... I'm not sure if I believe him. Glad I got the insurance, but not happy at all with this storage place. read more