Published on Thursday, 07 June 2012
When we are not experienced in self-storage, we put just about everything that we want to store into a self-storage unit. This though can be a mistake as not everything is suitable to be stored and this is just the reality of it. Of course, if the right measures are taken then anything can be stored, such as in vacuum sealed packaging or containers. Some things that should never be stored unless of course the right measures are taken can be found here.
Newspaper collections should never just be stacked in a storage unit, if you have a collection that needs to be stored then you should take special care while storing them. The main reason for this is that oxygen in general will start to degrade newspaper because the paper is very thin and fragile. Humidity in the air will also have a very damaging impact on newspapers that are stored. It is best to actually stored these papers in a vacuum sealed container, this will keep them from deteriorating but this alone will not do the trick. You should also make sure that the unit is climate controlled this will keep the humidity to a controllable level.
Instruments are one of the most common things that are almost completely destroyed after being stored for a period of time, especially wooden instruments and the main cause of this is because of the humidity in the air in a regular unit. This can be avoided by having a climate controlled unit but even with this added precaution it is still not recommended to store wooden instruments for long periods of time and if you do you should take them out every so often so they can breathe.
Mattresses; Mattresses are commonly stored but there are many precautions you should take when storing these because many do not and then they end up throwing out the mattress that they had stored for so long. Like others the main culprit for the destruction of stored items is the level of humidity and depending on your climate you may need to take note of this. Remember when storing mattresses to wrap them in plastic or get a mattress box. Another thing to do is the lift mattresses that are stored off the ground with blocks.
A big no-no is storing flammable items such as gasoline or pressurized cleaners and paints. The reasons are many but the main reason is that they pose a risk of explosion and fire. Storage spaces can rapidly rise in temperature and this can lead to excess pressure build up in flammable items and boom! Fire or worse! This cannot only damage your items in storage but also people.
One last thing that you should never store is live plants or flowers they just will not survive while in storage and the result will be you open the storage unit one day and all the flowers and plants will be dead.
