Investment in property is still a popular way of making a return, it has been seen, despite falling house prices and a lack in confidence across the market.The threat of negative equity is enough to deter many first-time buyers from picking up a property in the current market, but the option to let out a property still remains attractive to some.
Jason Lines, site manager at one of George Wimpey West Midlands' flagship developments, purchased a home from the new site in order to let out the flat."I bought a two bedroom/two bathroom designer apartment because of the space available and the sheer value for money it offered," explained Mr Lines.
"I found a young professional tenant straight away and the rent more than makes it self sufficient. I obviously rate the product and the build quality, but this is also a very up-and-coming new area benefiting from a lot of regeneration." Homeowners hoping to make the most of cheap property prices in order to become buy-to-let landlords may wish to use safe storage in order to maximise the room in a flat.
Friday, 21 November 2008
Self Storage Terrorists
Five men have been convicted of conspiring to cause explosions after a trial at the Old Bailey, which heard they had kept potentially explosive material in a self-storage facility in west London. What restrictions are there on the self-storage industry and how vulnerable is it to use by terrorists?
On CCTV footage Khyam can be seen peering into a bag of fertiliser
Emma Wallis was chatting with some friends in a pub after work one day in February 2004 when one of them said: "Did you hear about that body being found in a storage depot?"
Her regional manager, Paul Best, told her he had been a witness several years before in an IRA trial.
In September 1996 the police had foiled an IRA bomb plot in London after being tipped off about 10 tons of fertiliser being kept in a lock-up in Hackney.
The mention of fertiliser suddenly made Miss Wallis very worried.
UK SELF-STORAGE FACTS
There are around 600 self-storage facilities in UK, up from 100 in 1999
That is around 20 million square feet of rentable space
The industry is growing at up to 15% per year
The industry is worth £310m a year and employs 2,000 people
About 200,000 people a year use self-storage facilities
She worked at Access Self-Storage in Hanwell, west London, and knew one of the units was rented out to an Asian man who used it to store a huge bag of what he said was fertiliser.
The bag had not moved for three months.
Mr Best asked her why someone would spend £200 a month storing fertiliser which was only worth £100.
The following morning Miss Wallis raised her concerns with her area manager, Jackie Foster, and she agreed with her.
Ms Foster contacted the police and when they arrived they were so worried they kept the place under surveillance and switched the fertiliser with an inert substance, believed to be cat litter.
Later, under cross-examination by Michael Mansfield QC, Miss Wallis said she had been aware that fertiliser was flammable but she pointed out that so were perfume, alcohol and paint, all of which the self-storage industry was happy to store.
Undercover operation
As part of Operation Crevice the anti-terrorist squad used an undercover policewoman, posing as an Access receptionist, to ring up the man who had rented the unit and query an overdue payment.
Omar Khyam visited the depot three times in March and on one occasion was caught marking the bag of fertiliser, perhaps to allow him to see if it had been moved. But by then it had already been replaced.
On the last two visits Khyam mentioned that March was the last month for which storage was required, suggesting the bomb plot was near to fruition.
On 30 March police swooped on the gang and foiled the plot.
The gang paid £200 a month to store a £100 bag of fertiliser
The bag had contained 600kg of ammonium nitrate, usually used to make fertiliser.
The gang bought it from a company of agricultural merchants and told them it was for an allotment, but David Waters QC, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey: "This was somewhat surprising as the allotment would have to be the size of four or five football pitches, and it was the wrong time of year to apply ammonium nitrate as a fertiliser."
But what are the rules for self-storage facilities and what is there to stop terrorists and other criminals from storing explosives, drugs and guns in such places?
In 1999 there were only 100 self-storage depots in the UK. Now there are about 600.
Most reputable depots ask clients to sign a form, part of which is a disclaimer in which the person waives their rights if they have stored anything flammable or illegal.
A spokesman for Access Self-Storage said they would not be commenting on Operation Crevice or the wider issue of security but a source said Access had very tight procedures and were one of the first companies to introduce a "no cash" policy.
Our members are committed to very high standards of security and insist on stringent vetting conditions for all new customers
Rodney WalkerSelf Storage Association
But Rodney Walker, from the Self Storage Association (SSA), said: "Our members are committed to very high standards of security and insist on stringent vetting conditions for all new customers."
The SSA has 200 members, although Access is not among them.
Mr Walker said: "The process employed has been developed in connection with the relevant security authorities and comprises the collection of key data at the point of hire, such as the requirement of photo ID, the provision of full contact details and copies of utility bills.
IRA bomber Patrick Kelly's 1996 plot was foiled when police raided a storage facility
"The association also has a policy of not accepting cash payments and our members all use CCTV camera networks."
Mr Walker pointed out the SSA's rules were far more rigorous than those who rent out lock-up garages or flats.
All self-storage companies have a duty of confidentiality to their clients under the Data Protection Act.
But if there is reason to believe a storage room contains prohibited goods - such as explosives, handguns, drugs or contraband cigarettes - the company can enter a customer's rental space or open it for the police, fire service or local authority.
Mr Walker said: "We believe we have established a good working code of practices with regard to security. These practices remain constantly under review with all members providing input to help ensure that it remains difficult for individuals to use self-storage facilities for anything other than their intended use."
Worryingly Emma Wallis, and her line manager Pinderjit Saini, admitted under cross-examination at the Old Bailey trial that in November 2003 when they had hired the unit out to Khyam's gang they had had no idea fertiliser might be used to make a bomb.
On CCTV footage Khyam can be seen peering into a bag of fertiliser
Emma Wallis was chatting with some friends in a pub after work one day in February 2004 when one of them said: "Did you hear about that body being found in a storage depot?"
Her regional manager, Paul Best, told her he had been a witness several years before in an IRA trial.
In September 1996 the police had foiled an IRA bomb plot in London after being tipped off about 10 tons of fertiliser being kept in a lock-up in Hackney.
The mention of fertiliser suddenly made Miss Wallis very worried.
UK SELF-STORAGE FACTS
There are around 600 self-storage facilities in UK, up from 100 in 1999
That is around 20 million square feet of rentable space
The industry is growing at up to 15% per year
The industry is worth £310m a year and employs 2,000 people
About 200,000 people a year use self-storage facilities
She worked at Access Self-Storage in Hanwell, west London, and knew one of the units was rented out to an Asian man who used it to store a huge bag of what he said was fertiliser.
The bag had not moved for three months.
Mr Best asked her why someone would spend £200 a month storing fertiliser which was only worth £100.
The following morning Miss Wallis raised her concerns with her area manager, Jackie Foster, and she agreed with her.
Ms Foster contacted the police and when they arrived they were so worried they kept the place under surveillance and switched the fertiliser with an inert substance, believed to be cat litter.
Later, under cross-examination by Michael Mansfield QC, Miss Wallis said she had been aware that fertiliser was flammable but she pointed out that so were perfume, alcohol and paint, all of which the self-storage industry was happy to store.
Undercover operation
As part of Operation Crevice the anti-terrorist squad used an undercover policewoman, posing as an Access receptionist, to ring up the man who had rented the unit and query an overdue payment.
Omar Khyam visited the depot three times in March and on one occasion was caught marking the bag of fertiliser, perhaps to allow him to see if it had been moved. But by then it had already been replaced.
On the last two visits Khyam mentioned that March was the last month for which storage was required, suggesting the bomb plot was near to fruition.
On 30 March police swooped on the gang and foiled the plot.
The gang paid £200 a month to store a £100 bag of fertiliser
The bag had contained 600kg of ammonium nitrate, usually used to make fertiliser.
The gang bought it from a company of agricultural merchants and told them it was for an allotment, but David Waters QC, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey: "This was somewhat surprising as the allotment would have to be the size of four or five football pitches, and it was the wrong time of year to apply ammonium nitrate as a fertiliser."
But what are the rules for self-storage facilities and what is there to stop terrorists and other criminals from storing explosives, drugs and guns in such places?
In 1999 there were only 100 self-storage depots in the UK. Now there are about 600.
Most reputable depots ask clients to sign a form, part of which is a disclaimer in which the person waives their rights if they have stored anything flammable or illegal.
A spokesman for Access Self-Storage said they would not be commenting on Operation Crevice or the wider issue of security but a source said Access had very tight procedures and were one of the first companies to introduce a "no cash" policy.
Our members are committed to very high standards of security and insist on stringent vetting conditions for all new customers
Rodney WalkerSelf Storage Association
But Rodney Walker, from the Self Storage Association (SSA), said: "Our members are committed to very high standards of security and insist on stringent vetting conditions for all new customers."
The SSA has 200 members, although Access is not among them.
Mr Walker said: "The process employed has been developed in connection with the relevant security authorities and comprises the collection of key data at the point of hire, such as the requirement of photo ID, the provision of full contact details and copies of utility bills.
IRA bomber Patrick Kelly's 1996 plot was foiled when police raided a storage facility
"The association also has a policy of not accepting cash payments and our members all use CCTV camera networks."
Mr Walker pointed out the SSA's rules were far more rigorous than those who rent out lock-up garages or flats.
All self-storage companies have a duty of confidentiality to their clients under the Data Protection Act.
But if there is reason to believe a storage room contains prohibited goods - such as explosives, handguns, drugs or contraband cigarettes - the company can enter a customer's rental space or open it for the police, fire service or local authority.
Mr Walker said: "We believe we have established a good working code of practices with regard to security. These practices remain constantly under review with all members providing input to help ensure that it remains difficult for individuals to use self-storage facilities for anything other than their intended use."
Worryingly Emma Wallis, and her line manager Pinderjit Saini, admitted under cross-examination at the Old Bailey trial that in November 2003 when they had hired the unit out to Khyam's gang they had had no idea fertiliser might be used to make a bomb.
Big Yellow
The concept for the Big Yellow Self Storage Company was based on an American idea.
The team at Big Yellow wanted to be retailers of space, to give customers the same level of service that they'd get at the supermarket.
Storage was to become consumer friendly, and the stores themselves would have flexible opening hours, be nice, have pleasant environments and happy, approachable staff.
Along with a competitive price, these have become the core values of the Big Yellow company.
Once they had created the "core" product that customers wanted, they needed to build their customer base by letting people know about their business.
No marketing experience
Chief executive Nicholas Vetch and his team came to storage via the property business.
They had zero marketing experience, so creating awareness about their business has been a case of trial and error. And common sense.
Nick's maxim for marketing all along has been "only do it if you're going to do it really well and it will have the maximum effect".
So far they've tried the following types of marketing:
The web: very successful and relatively cheap
Leaflet drops: lots of effort and not very successful
Radio ads: pretty successful and very cost effective in the 'regions'
Billboards: couldn't afford to do it enough to have an impact.
Advertising campaign
And they've just launched their first ever TV campaign.
It's a big move in terms of financial outlay but the company feels that the time is right.
When you want to cover the whole of London, the easiest thing to do is to go straight to television
Nicholas Vetch, Chief Executive, The Big Yellow Self Storage Company
With advertising, you have to decide what you want to get out of it. The Big Yellow believe that it will raise awareness of the product and brand.
They want the Big Yellow to be synonymous with storage.
The campaign will run for six weeks and the response is being gauged via the website.
Each customer who comes into the storage facilities is then asked how they heard about the company.
The Big Yellow Self Storage Company also picked this time of year to run the campaign because spring is a big time for house moves.
The ad company
Doner, Cardwell, Hawkins started working with the Big Yellow a year ago, talking to them about what their ambitions were.
Their aim was to inject some human values into the brand, to knock off the fairly sterile side of storage.
The commercial they have come up with is quite quirky and fun. Warehouses can be quite daunting but the ad aims to emphasise the human side.
The brand was already well defined and all the values were positive. So Doner, Cardwell, Hawkins took a different tack.
They asked consumers what they'd most like to put in storage, and all of the women asked jokingly said their partner.
Though most of them then added something more serious, the idea of locking up your husband had stuck.
Now the campaign is on general release, and Nick and his colleagues have to wait and see just how successful it will be.
Student Guide
Got a garage? Can you get the car in - or is it full of stuff you don't want in your home?
Big Yellow is a business that can help you. It aims to provide a user friendly environment where you can store all that stuff.
Many storage businesses are bleak and a bit intimidating. Big Yellow really wanted to get over this image by providing a more human touch - so they needed some marketing.
The team which runs Big Yellow had little experience of marketing. They had tried a few methods and investigated others.
The Big Yellow website has been very successful and quite cheap
Leaflet drops have been time consuming and not very effective
Radio ads are good for the regions and cost effective
Billboards are expensive and need lots to have an impact
TV - let's find out...
Just think...
Work out why some methods have been successful and others haven't.
What sort of businesses might use each method successfully?
Campaign planning
Big Yellow decided that the time had come to advertise on the TV.
They've now got 20 stores, so the potential market is large and TV reaches a large audience.
They needed an advertising agency to help them because television advertising is expensive, so it's important to get it right.
So what did they have to do?
Decide what the brand stands for
Decide on the goal
Decide on style of advert
Work out when to show it
Monitor the response.
Just think...
Why is it important to plan a campaign very carefully?
How do you think the fact that Big Yellow now has twenty stores affects the decision to advertise on the television?
Pick a product that you use and work out a strategy to advertise it.
What does Big Yellow stand for?
Deciding what a product "stands for" can sometimes be difficult, particularly if it's being sold to a wide range of people.
Big Yellow was quite clear. It gives storage a human face and is customer friendly - something which some storage companies haven't achieved.
Just think...
What do you think the following products or brands stand for - Tango, X-Box, Miners, Thorntons, Tesco, Mars Bar?
Sometimes advertising agencies find if difficult when people from a business have a very strong idea about what a business stands for.
Why do you think this is?
What's the goal?
Do you talk about your Walkman or your personal stereo?
How about Biro, Thermos flask or Hoover? Many products are called by a product name instead of a general name.
The goal was to make Big Yellow the name everyone uses for storage. They also wanted to make more people aware of storage.
Most of us wonder what to do when the garage, spare bedroom and the loft are full of things we can't bear to part with.
Why not put it in store?
Just think...
Have a look at some ads on the television and decide on the goal of the advertising.
Work out what the company's market research must have been telling the business about its product or customers.
What style of ad?
Storage isn't like shampoo, champagne or chocolates, which you can sell using all sorts of "feelgood" strategies.
They decided that humour would work and produced an ad which was quirky and fun.
This helped to get over the message that Big Yellow storage centres are not daunting but friendly places.
Just think...
Work out why the ads you have looked at use a particular style.
What are they trying to do? Why is the style appropriate for the ad?
When to show it?
Many people move house, get married or just decide to have a clear out in the spring. These moments are just the time when people need storage.
Some of it is short-term. Some of it is long-term.
Short-term can also turn into long-term when people decide they like the space - just what Big Yellow likes.
Just think...
Advertising for some products is seasonal. Have you noticed that as soon as Christmas dinner is over, the TV is full of ads for summer holidays?
The new catalogues are out and holiday companies must assume that we can spend those long winter days when the family is together to plan and dream about the summer.
It must work or the companies wouldn't spend the money.
Work out which ads are seasonal and explain why.
Monitoring the response
There is no point spending thousands of pounds on advertising if it has no effect, so monitoring is important.
Big Yellow wants to do two things:
increase sales of space
raise awareness of storage.
So it:
monitors the number of new customers and asks them where they heard about Big Yellow
watches the hits on the website.
Just think...
Work out how the businesses, whose TV ads you've seen, might monitor the effect of their spending.
The team at Big Yellow wanted to be retailers of space, to give customers the same level of service that they'd get at the supermarket.
Storage was to become consumer friendly, and the stores themselves would have flexible opening hours, be nice, have pleasant environments and happy, approachable staff.
Along with a competitive price, these have become the core values of the Big Yellow company.
Once they had created the "core" product that customers wanted, they needed to build their customer base by letting people know about their business.
No marketing experience
Chief executive Nicholas Vetch and his team came to storage via the property business.
They had zero marketing experience, so creating awareness about their business has been a case of trial and error. And common sense.
Nick's maxim for marketing all along has been "only do it if you're going to do it really well and it will have the maximum effect".
So far they've tried the following types of marketing:
The web: very successful and relatively cheap
Leaflet drops: lots of effort and not very successful
Radio ads: pretty successful and very cost effective in the 'regions'
Billboards: couldn't afford to do it enough to have an impact.
Advertising campaign
And they've just launched their first ever TV campaign.
It's a big move in terms of financial outlay but the company feels that the time is right.
When you want to cover the whole of London, the easiest thing to do is to go straight to television
Nicholas Vetch, Chief Executive, The Big Yellow Self Storage Company
With advertising, you have to decide what you want to get out of it. The Big Yellow believe that it will raise awareness of the product and brand.
They want the Big Yellow to be synonymous with storage.
The campaign will run for six weeks and the response is being gauged via the website.
Each customer who comes into the storage facilities is then asked how they heard about the company.
The Big Yellow Self Storage Company also picked this time of year to run the campaign because spring is a big time for house moves.
The ad company
Doner, Cardwell, Hawkins started working with the Big Yellow a year ago, talking to them about what their ambitions were.
Their aim was to inject some human values into the brand, to knock off the fairly sterile side of storage.
The commercial they have come up with is quite quirky and fun. Warehouses can be quite daunting but the ad aims to emphasise the human side.
The brand was already well defined and all the values were positive. So Doner, Cardwell, Hawkins took a different tack.
They asked consumers what they'd most like to put in storage, and all of the women asked jokingly said their partner.
Though most of them then added something more serious, the idea of locking up your husband had stuck.
Now the campaign is on general release, and Nick and his colleagues have to wait and see just how successful it will be.
Student Guide
Got a garage? Can you get the car in - or is it full of stuff you don't want in your home?
Big Yellow is a business that can help you. It aims to provide a user friendly environment where you can store all that stuff.
Many storage businesses are bleak and a bit intimidating. Big Yellow really wanted to get over this image by providing a more human touch - so they needed some marketing.
The team which runs Big Yellow had little experience of marketing. They had tried a few methods and investigated others.
The Big Yellow website has been very successful and quite cheap
Leaflet drops have been time consuming and not very effective
Radio ads are good for the regions and cost effective
Billboards are expensive and need lots to have an impact
TV - let's find out...
Just think...
Work out why some methods have been successful and others haven't.
What sort of businesses might use each method successfully?
Campaign planning
Big Yellow decided that the time had come to advertise on the TV.
They've now got 20 stores, so the potential market is large and TV reaches a large audience.
They needed an advertising agency to help them because television advertising is expensive, so it's important to get it right.
So what did they have to do?
Decide what the brand stands for
Decide on the goal
Decide on style of advert
Work out when to show it
Monitor the response.
Just think...
Why is it important to plan a campaign very carefully?
How do you think the fact that Big Yellow now has twenty stores affects the decision to advertise on the television?
Pick a product that you use and work out a strategy to advertise it.
What does Big Yellow stand for?
Deciding what a product "stands for" can sometimes be difficult, particularly if it's being sold to a wide range of people.
Big Yellow was quite clear. It gives storage a human face and is customer friendly - something which some storage companies haven't achieved.
Just think...
What do you think the following products or brands stand for - Tango, X-Box, Miners, Thorntons, Tesco, Mars Bar?
Sometimes advertising agencies find if difficult when people from a business have a very strong idea about what a business stands for.
Why do you think this is?
What's the goal?
Do you talk about your Walkman or your personal stereo?
How about Biro, Thermos flask or Hoover? Many products are called by a product name instead of a general name.
The goal was to make Big Yellow the name everyone uses for storage. They also wanted to make more people aware of storage.
Most of us wonder what to do when the garage, spare bedroom and the loft are full of things we can't bear to part with.
Why not put it in store?
Just think...
Have a look at some ads on the television and decide on the goal of the advertising.
Work out what the company's market research must have been telling the business about its product or customers.
What style of ad?
Storage isn't like shampoo, champagne or chocolates, which you can sell using all sorts of "feelgood" strategies.
They decided that humour would work and produced an ad which was quirky and fun.
This helped to get over the message that Big Yellow storage centres are not daunting but friendly places.
Just think...
Work out why the ads you have looked at use a particular style.
What are they trying to do? Why is the style appropriate for the ad?
When to show it?
Many people move house, get married or just decide to have a clear out in the spring. These moments are just the time when people need storage.
Some of it is short-term. Some of it is long-term.
Short-term can also turn into long-term when people decide they like the space - just what Big Yellow likes.
Just think...
Advertising for some products is seasonal. Have you noticed that as soon as Christmas dinner is over, the TV is full of ads for summer holidays?
The new catalogues are out and holiday companies must assume that we can spend those long winter days when the family is together to plan and dream about the summer.
It must work or the companies wouldn't spend the money.
Work out which ads are seasonal and explain why.
Monitoring the response
There is no point spending thousands of pounds on advertising if it has no effect, so monitoring is important.
Big Yellow wants to do two things:
increase sales of space
raise awareness of storage.
So it:
monitors the number of new customers and asks them where they heard about Big Yellow
watches the hits on the website.
Just think...
Work out how the businesses, whose TV ads you've seen, might monitor the effect of their spending.
Bizzarre Storage
Every Thursday evening at around six o'clock, Terence goes to visit his mother in north London. "It's nice to get away from everything, sit down and have a good old chat with her," he says, blinking nervously through his bifocals. "Not a lot of people know I come here. It's something I like to keep to myself."
Terence, 56, potters off down a long brightly-lit corridor, takes a key out of his pocket and opens a locked door to his left. Beyond is a room, 250 foot square, containing a battered old armchair and an urn containing his mother's ashes.
He will spend the next couple of hours cocooned in this temperature-regulated box to which nobody else in the world has access. There are no mobile telephones, no colleagues asking awkward questions and no sound other than the shuffle of footsteps or gentle piped music. This, for Terence, is the beauty of the self-storage unit.
He is not alone in discovering the benefits of a steel-bound room of one's own. Since the first self-storage company opened in Britain 12 years ago, business has boomed. The number of warehouses has increased tenfold, from around 30 a decade ago to more than 300 today.
As property prices rise and housing space gets smaller, more and more people in Britain are renting self-storage units to act as their spare room. It is cheap, too: a 75 sq ft unit rents from around £70 a month. Across the pond where the idea originated, there are more than 40,000 self-storage depots and the industry is worth more than the entire American music business.
Paul Glenister, 41, who set up Easystore, the first self-storage unit in Britain, says:"It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire industry grows 30 or 40 per cent each year. But it's not just the figures that make it a great job. You see all forms of human life coming through your doors.
People tend to need storage at dramatic points in their lives, so we get customers going through bad times: divorces or downsizing because they've lost their job; and those going through good times: having a baby and needing extra space."
And, of course, self-storage also attracts its fair share of people going through just plain weird times. At Easystore in Tonbridge, Kent, the units have housed anything from a collection of designer dog jackets to glass-fibre dinosaurs, taxidermist models, diesel trains and a personal collection of 500 shoes.
Warehouse managers have spotted desperate couples using storage units to conduct illicit affairs. The London Ambulance service hires a 2,000 sq ft area in Bow for medical equipment and a premiership football team is said to house its gym in one.
Then there's the solicitor at King's Cross who rents his self-storage unit to practise the flute in his lunch hour and the man in east London, who tried to set up an art gallery in his (he wasn't allowed to).
There's the man who has soundproofed the walls of his unit to use it as a recording studio and the errant husband in Wells, Somerset, who keeps a vast collection of pornographic magazines in his. Another male customer, unbeknown to his wife, keeps an extensive wine cellar so that he can enjoy a leisurely afternoon's drinking.
"It's not just the men," Mr Glenister says. "You'd be surprised how many wives use units to store, shall we say, racy shopping that they want to hide from their spouses."
With such a cornucopia of human experience to contend with, the efficacy of a self-storage warehouse relies on the preternatural alertness of the staff.
At the Big Yellow Self Storage warehouse in Bow, east London, Ibrahim Khan, the deputy manager, 37, prides himself on his attention to detail. He is in charge of 1,800 units in a vast warehouse perched in the middle of a busy dual carriageway and surrounded by abandoned building sites.
"I had one customer whose unit began to smell because he was using it to store old tyres. I told him, 'You can't do that because it's a fire hazard,' " says Mr Khan, his brow knitting at the seriousness of the situation.
"I had another customer who wanted to store thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and I said, 'You can't do that because of the insurance.' Customers want to eat in their units and I say... "
They can't do that?
"No, because if they bring in the fish and chips and they forget it in the unit, it would start to smell and we would get vermin."
The only vermin at this depot recently has been the human kind. A policeman turned up last week with a warrant to search one of the units for stolen goods.
Of course, the 24-hour access allowed at some depots, the anonymity and security combined with the affordable rent (Big Yellow offers a 10 sq ft cubicle for £18 a month) are all rather attractive to would-be criminals.
Sometimes the crimes are ones prompted by absent-mindedness. The late author Gustav Hasford, who wrote the book on which the film Full Metal Jacket was based, received a six-month jail sentence in 1989 after a few hundred of the 650 cubic feet of books he kept in a Californian self-storage unit turned out to be overdue from nine libraries.
But others are a little more serious. In 1996, the IRA was discovered storing semtex in a Shepherd's Bush storage unit. Two years ago, staff at the Big Yellow Self Storage company in Brighton alerted police after one of their units started to smell.
In it, police discovered the body of Jane Longhurst, a teacher who had been murdered and kept in storage by her killer, Graham Coutts, for 25 days.
Since then, security has tightened and all Big Yellow depots now have pin access codes and regular patrols. The walls of each unit have a gap at the top through which concerned staff can peer if anything arouses their suspicion.
But otherwise, discretion is assured and you can spend all the time you like talking to your mother's ashes, enjoying your taxidermy collection and all manner of other bizarreness.
Terence, 56, potters off down a long brightly-lit corridor, takes a key out of his pocket and opens a locked door to his left. Beyond is a room, 250 foot square, containing a battered old armchair and an urn containing his mother's ashes.
He will spend the next couple of hours cocooned in this temperature-regulated box to which nobody else in the world has access. There are no mobile telephones, no colleagues asking awkward questions and no sound other than the shuffle of footsteps or gentle piped music. This, for Terence, is the beauty of the self-storage unit.
He is not alone in discovering the benefits of a steel-bound room of one's own. Since the first self-storage company opened in Britain 12 years ago, business has boomed. The number of warehouses has increased tenfold, from around 30 a decade ago to more than 300 today.
As property prices rise and housing space gets smaller, more and more people in Britain are renting self-storage units to act as their spare room. It is cheap, too: a 75 sq ft unit rents from around £70 a month. Across the pond where the idea originated, there are more than 40,000 self-storage depots and the industry is worth more than the entire American music business.
Paul Glenister, 41, who set up Easystore, the first self-storage unit in Britain, says:"It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire industry grows 30 or 40 per cent each year. But it's not just the figures that make it a great job. You see all forms of human life coming through your doors.
People tend to need storage at dramatic points in their lives, so we get customers going through bad times: divorces or downsizing because they've lost their job; and those going through good times: having a baby and needing extra space."
And, of course, self-storage also attracts its fair share of people going through just plain weird times. At Easystore in Tonbridge, Kent, the units have housed anything from a collection of designer dog jackets to glass-fibre dinosaurs, taxidermist models, diesel trains and a personal collection of 500 shoes.
Warehouse managers have spotted desperate couples using storage units to conduct illicit affairs. The London Ambulance service hires a 2,000 sq ft area in Bow for medical equipment and a premiership football team is said to house its gym in one.
Then there's the solicitor at King's Cross who rents his self-storage unit to practise the flute in his lunch hour and the man in east London, who tried to set up an art gallery in his (he wasn't allowed to).
There's the man who has soundproofed the walls of his unit to use it as a recording studio and the errant husband in Wells, Somerset, who keeps a vast collection of pornographic magazines in his. Another male customer, unbeknown to his wife, keeps an extensive wine cellar so that he can enjoy a leisurely afternoon's drinking.
"It's not just the men," Mr Glenister says. "You'd be surprised how many wives use units to store, shall we say, racy shopping that they want to hide from their spouses."
With such a cornucopia of human experience to contend with, the efficacy of a self-storage warehouse relies on the preternatural alertness of the staff.
At the Big Yellow Self Storage warehouse in Bow, east London, Ibrahim Khan, the deputy manager, 37, prides himself on his attention to detail. He is in charge of 1,800 units in a vast warehouse perched in the middle of a busy dual carriageway and surrounded by abandoned building sites.
"I had one customer whose unit began to smell because he was using it to store old tyres. I told him, 'You can't do that because it's a fire hazard,' " says Mr Khan, his brow knitting at the seriousness of the situation.
"I had another customer who wanted to store thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and I said, 'You can't do that because of the insurance.' Customers want to eat in their units and I say... "
They can't do that?
"No, because if they bring in the fish and chips and they forget it in the unit, it would start to smell and we would get vermin."
The only vermin at this depot recently has been the human kind. A policeman turned up last week with a warrant to search one of the units for stolen goods.
Of course, the 24-hour access allowed at some depots, the anonymity and security combined with the affordable rent (Big Yellow offers a 10 sq ft cubicle for £18 a month) are all rather attractive to would-be criminals.
Sometimes the crimes are ones prompted by absent-mindedness. The late author Gustav Hasford, who wrote the book on which the film Full Metal Jacket was based, received a six-month jail sentence in 1989 after a few hundred of the 650 cubic feet of books he kept in a Californian self-storage unit turned out to be overdue from nine libraries.
But others are a little more serious. In 1996, the IRA was discovered storing semtex in a Shepherd's Bush storage unit. Two years ago, staff at the Big Yellow Self Storage company in Brighton alerted police after one of their units started to smell.
In it, police discovered the body of Jane Longhurst, a teacher who had been murdered and kept in storage by her killer, Graham Coutts, for 25 days.
Since then, security has tightened and all Big Yellow depots now have pin access codes and regular patrols. The walls of each unit have a gap at the top through which concerned staff can peer if anything arouses their suspicion.
But otherwise, discretion is assured and you can spend all the time you like talking to your mother's ashes, enjoying your taxidermy collection and all manner of other bizarreness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
