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| - Before I start my long review ... a couple of caveats.
1) This review is for the storage side of the business. My U-Haul truck rentals have always gone smoothly, no complaints.
2) In this facility's defense it might be that the problems I encountered are issues that are U-Haul wide. Overall, I'm satisfied in my dealing with the people at this facility. It's U-Haul policies and technology that created grief for me.
3) This review is for the purpose of giving prospective customers advanced knowledge of what to expect, and is not meant to be pejorative toward the business on Bell Rd.
To begin, in no particular order ...
1) My biggest complaint is their no-refund policy for the unused portion of the pre-paid month's rental. I had four 10x10 units rented for several months at more than $400 a month total. When I moved out, three of the units had one week left, and one unit had three weeks left. So, basically by moving out when I did I left behind about $200 in what should have been refunded to me. Anybody want to deny that that is real money? A decent chunk of change?
I'm betting that they have turned those units around and have rented them right back out again, thus getting double rent for those units. That's a practice that is technically legal, but frowned upon in real estate, for example, as being unethical. If I hadn't been so dog tired from moving out of four units in one day in 105-degree heat I might have thought to have kept the empty units and closed my accounts right on the day before payment was due again. But, that kind of pettiness is not me anyway.
2) Anyone thinking of using the U-Haul autopay feature needs to know that it probably won't work the first couple of months. You will receive notice when it fails, and get fined a good chunk of change. I tried twice to set it up online. When that failed (and I got fined) I went into the office and had it setup personally by the manager. That, too, failed resulting in a fine. Finally, the last month before I moved out the autopay finally began to work.
To her credit, and in her defense, Manager Whitney Beall graciously deleted the fines each time and apologized for the autopay failures. But, it was time and trouble on my part to clear it up each time it happened.
3) Others have commented that it is not clear when you first sign up for a unit that the 24/7 access is only available if you pay $10 a month extra. That happened to me. It feels weird, like you are a victim of a scam, when you have to go in and pay that $10 just to try to access your unit the first time before or after hours.
4) There's a flaw or bug in the card access system where if you are there for a long time, like you have four units to load or unload, the computer thinks you have left without sliding the card to sign out and will begin setting off alarms on your still-open units.
What's worse is that when you try to get access on a day following that you are denied access until you go into the office to have your access permission reset. Again, it makes a customer feel guilty and sheepish to have to go through that.
5) Some minor annoyances ...
One of the 10x10 units had only a half-wide door. If the clerk had told me that up front I would have requested a different unit. Very inconvenient.
Three of our units were in the farthest corner of the building from the entrance, and at the end of long, long hallways. We paid movers by the hour, and I'm betting that the extra time involved in endless walking back and forth pushing carts down long hallways resulted in a larger bill than it could have been if the clerk had given us a choice to have units closer to the entrance.
Be aware that if you rent a 10x20 storage unit as they advertise you are actually renting two 10x10 units that, in my case, were not even adjoining or even on the same side of the hallway. If you have items that really need more than a 10-foot-wide room then you will not be able to store it here. On the plus side, there is a price break for renting the fake "10x20" unit as compared to two 10x10 units.
In summary ...
This facility was very clean, and the manager and staff were always pleasant and helpful despite all of the issues I had with U-Haul policy and the lousy implementation of their technology.
Their truck-height loading dock was useful, but that benefit didn't offset the inconvenience of having only one door to access the whole facility, especially if your units were deep inside the bowels of the large building.
Bottom line, from a financial point of view, if I had to (heaven forbid) move again and use storage units I would go with a mom and pop storage facility that would allow me to drive right up to the storage unit for loading and unloading. No muss, no fuss. Just get it done.
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