UKH

Hi Folks,

As our latest attempt to purchase a house crashes and burns (again) it looks like we will be moving into rented accomodation for an unknown period whilst the hunt continues. I would be interested to hear peoples experiences if this if you have been in the same or similar situation. What are the do's and dont's of short term renting (hopefully) and any recomendations for a self storage units (Sheffield / South Yorkshire area preferably) to house all our clutter until we can find somewhere to live.

Cheers

GS

With regard to storage I have got quotes recently. Some units could be £100 per month in some parts of south Wales, but 3 or 4 times that in parts of the home counties. I was surprised that there was that much difference. So you could save yourself £3000 over a year for a unit near Bridgend, compared to one near Oxford. If you don't need access to your gear on a regular basis and are going to have to rent a van for the move anyway then a couple of trips down the motorway to save that much seems like a good idea. 

I guess some parts of Yorkshire will have cheaper storage than others, although probably not as much variation as my example.

i’ve used Big Yellow on Queens Road (10 mins from the Climbing Works) for the last two house moves, and have no complaints.

pay a little extra for a unit on the ground floor so no queuing for the lift. You get a key code to get in and out, and put your own padlock on your unit.

We stored a whole 3 bedroom house plus garage etc etc for a couple of months until we completed on our current house, We found short term renting pretty well impossible, so took some longer term air bnbs which worked well and we got to stay in some nice places

Do be aware of insurance when it comes to storage. What they offer you as basic cover likely won't cover the value of your goods. I have family members that used a large well known storage vendor in Croydon and the whole building went up in flames.

They soon realised they were very under-insured.

To add to that point, if your home contents insurance says it covers damage sustained during a house move it will likely have an exclusion clause for any moves that involve stuff going into storage. 

In addition to the insurance, it's also worth being brutally honest with yourself about whether it is worth storing stiff for any length of time; storage seems pretty good expensive...

What they offer will also cost an order of magnitude more than getting it from a third party.

Another vote from here for Big Yellow on Queens Road, not the cheapest but good service all round

Totally agree with that. We have stored stuff for years while overseas, not expensive but ended up junking half of it in the end. What's the point (for me anyway)

A third vote. Just don't buy their packing boxes or parcel tape.

Interesting, that we were only expecting a couple of weeks storage, which ended up as three months as a purchase fell through. My guitars and amps were right at the back of the unit and i couldn’t get to them (useful lesson there). I went to Richtone Music on Broadfield Road and bought a Gibson Flying V and a combo amp to see me through.

The bottom line is that when I got my stuff back, I ended up selling off a fair number of guitars, but I kept the flying V😍