18 and out of control

I moved home about 18 months ago (give or take -- mostly give). September 2009.   And since I've moved like 22 times in my life, I'm somewhat of an expert at liquidating my mess.  For example, on this move, most of the stuff was going into storage rather than a new place, so I sold my couch, the matching chair, some other misc furniture and while I was packing made several trips to Goodwill with stuff I just didn't need anymore.  Like the 8000 pieces of plasticware I had accumulated, my pans, some other misc kitchen items,  my playstation 2 and all games.  I even made a trip to the library and donated a bunch of books that I had bought and never read, bought and read - never to read again and some college textbooks that I never wanted to see again.  Even with all my liquidating, I still ended up with a ton of boxes. 

So, now that I live at home ... in the 10 x 10 room that I grew up in, 98% of my stuff is stuck in storage unit 18  -- a white metal building in the middle of nowhere USA.  

Secured by a lock that could withstand a hurricane -- if such a thing could happen here in the middle of the corn belt.  I have the only key (I think  -- it's possible there's another one somewhere in this house -- but that's another whole topic that I can't get into at the moment).

And while you can't see it very well in picture, this lock is the mother of all locks -- bought of course, by my mother.  It's rust proof and tamper proof.  (which makes me wonder how I'd cut it off if I ever lost my one key)  The entire building could be blown away by a tornado and when they found Door 18 -- this lock and part of the door frame would still be attached to it. I I think I could really clock someone in the head with it too, which would be an added benefit if anyone tried to mug me when I was  up there messing with my stuff. 

So in past 18 months, I've learned a thing or two about moving your entire life into storage.  The typical move consists of packing everything in boxes. (unless of course, your name is Carol Scherrman -- then there's no boxes involved - which is an oxy-moron considering how much of an organizational freak she is!) But boxes aren't necessarily the right packing component if you're just going to put everything in long term storage in a building without climate control. 

Okay, so lets talk about that first.  In Chicago and probably every other city in this world, there are multiple storage places that are indoor facilities with great lighting, rodent and climate control.  There are none of those facilities in Dubuque County, that's a little too progressive for around here -- instead you have your pick of a bunch of buildings with 8 million garage doors outside. If you have the misfortune of having to go there to dig through your stuff in the winter - you freeze your butt off.  Lighting -- ha!  There's one light on every side of the building and absolutely no lights inside any of the units -- because umm... why would anyone want to go there at night?? 

"18" is one of those buildings -- simply a small room, plywood walls and a garage door all for $25 a month.  To make matters worse, the parking lot is gravel and "18" is on the side of the building that faces the highway which equals dirt -- lots of it.   

Here's my nice white dining table, covered with dust.  Everything in "18" is a gritty mess.  Yuck. 

Back to the box thing.  There's two pieces to my lessons learned.  #1 is again that cardboard boxes aren't the best thing to put in long term storage.  I honestly never gave the container much thought -- maybe I thought I wouldn't be storing every thing long term because I would get a real job with a real salary and move to my own real apartment or something  -- I don't know.  Bottom line, cardboard retains moisture and after time breaks down -- which means, if boxes are stacked on top of each other -- things get smashed. 

This is just one example of a lot of things.  1.  the box is smashed because of the moisture weakening the structure. The blue tote at the top of the picture was sitting on top of it at one point. But, look at the ones stacked behind it ... tops are collapsed.  2.  The moisture loosened the tape, which opened the contents to the "elements"  i.e. dust and unwanted pests. Most of the boxes are like this, even one ones on the second row,-- well not exactly to this extreme because I opened this box looking for something that I didn't find -- because the content didn't match the labeling.  That brings me to #3.  The labeling.  I thought I did a good job of labeling stuff when I packed, but clearly at some point I (and my packing partner - i.e. MOM) got a little lazy.  This box was labeled, spare bedroom pictures and books. I was looking for my dad's high school graduation picture which was on the shelf in my spare bedroom in my old apartment  - so I thought wow! great, I found it without much digging.   Uh.. no.  It wasn't in there and in fact, there wasn't anything in this box from the spare bedroom, except maybe one book. 

The second lesson from the box thing is how we packed them in the storage unit to begin with.  I don't have a picture of how orderly and tight my nephew and my sister stacked everything on moving day.  But here's how it looks now:

A sad sight indeed ... but here's what happened to bring me to this day and this mess.  So originally there was a lot more stuff in here.  A day bed, a book shelf, a glass tv stand, a chair, my home stereo system and some other stuff.  It was all packed very orderly and in a manner that, if and when I moved again, it could all be packed right back into the truck. 

Then last fall, my girlfriend made one of those domestic abuse "escapes" from her husband,  leaving with just the clothes she was wearing and never going back.  She moved into an apartment and had no furniture. Someone gave her beds for her kids, but she was sleeping on the floor!  And I had a daybed sitting in storage that I had been trying to pawn off on all my nieces and nephews for months.  So after she was settled, we went to "18" and moved the daybed, the tv stand, the shelf  and home stereo system to her house.  Again, liquidating my life. 

This is when organization went to hell in a hand basket.  In our infinite wisdom putting everything in "18" on moving day, the frame and the popup for the daybed ended up behind all the boxes, against the back wall of the unit.  To get to it, everything had to be moved -- and not just moved to the side -- because that would be too easy.  Nope, the bottom of the popup was stuck under the boxes, so practically every box had to come out of "18".  Then, of course, it started raining while we were doing all of this ... HARD.  So needless to say, things went back into "18" in a very quick and haphazard manner leaving me with the mess you're looking at now.   

The second lesson on the boxes is to put the things you might need at some point closer to the front.  This would eliminate moving everything to find one box. And of course that will only work if the boxes are labeled correctly --- or see through.  

Then there's the rodent factor in "18".   At this particular storage place, it's clear they do nothing for pest control -- even though we asked about it and they claimed that they did.  All I can say is thank god someone in my family had the foresight to put pallets down on the floor before we unloaded the moving truck.  There are dropping everywhere .... and I found 2 dead mice under one of the pallets.  (I tried to take a picture of them, but needed an extra hand to balance the flash light while I janked around with the camera)  

I refresh these blocks of mouse bait about every three months and they're eating it because its always chewed on. And clearly they are dying -- but why in "18"?  Can't you go somethere else and do that?  Like back to the mouse bar or something?  When I was looking for my dad's picture, a mouse jumped out at me when I moved this box. (below -- which has my crock pot in it -- I'm thinking that's hitting the dumpster soon).   First it squeaked like he was pinched and I pulled back my hand thinking "what the hell was that?"  Then I moved the box again and out he came at full throttle.  Of course I screamed and jumped back about 5 feet -- all for a rodent no bigger than a quarter.  Yuck --- and to think I had a gerbil when I was growing up! 

So when I was moving the daybed out for my friend, I realized that the mice had taken up residence in my wing backed chair. I completely freaked.  They had burrowed down into the seat and the cushion was all wet because of mouse urine -- it was so gross AND  I had to put it in my car to take it back to the farm.  (needless to say I was screaming and probably broke every speed law in the mile drive home!)  It so pissed me off because I just spent $350 recovering the damn thing before I moved home. 

I had no one to blame but myself. In hindsight, I should have never left it in there.  The movers had wrapped it in plastic and I thought it would be okay.  I never considered the mouse factor.  Oddly, they were only in the chair and not the mattresses for the daybed.  I could laugh about that and say it was because those cheapo mattresses were hard as a rock and the chair was very very comfortable.  The chair is now in our garage -- covered with my mom's junk. Our garage has its own mice issues, so she put it up on Styrofoam blocks "so the mice couldn't get into it again."  Oh, like that's going to stop them?  The chair was sitting on the pallet in "18" when they moved on in.  That chair is like the penthouse to them!   Mom would prefer to throw the chair away and brings it up often.  But no way man!  That's an American classic -- As soon as I get my tax refund, I'm going to have it re-recovered and then store it somewhere safe --- like in my nephew's living room or in our basement.   

So the about the only productive thing that happened to me on the day I was looking for my dad's picture was finding some old college textbooks in a box (again, labeled incorrectly).  I brought them home to try to sell them on ebay.  Two of these books were from classes that added grey hairs on my head --  managerial finance that I had to take 3 times before I could pass the damn thing and stats (the orange book) Ugh ---  lots of swearing in that class -- despite that it was taught by a monk.  "If P is low, H0 must go. If P is high H1 must die".  It's the only thing I remember.  It haunts me in my sleep.   Anyway ... I couldn't sell them because the editions were too old, so then I made a comment aloud that I was going to burn them and of course, right away my pack-rat mother decided she wanted to keep them to use for her volunteer organization.  (ugh ....more junk in the house). 

After I conceded the book discussion, I told her that I needed to buy some plastic totes and repack the boxes in "18"  to better protect them from the elements.  I wanted to get like 20 huge plastic totes -- like those 45 gallon ones that you could practically swim in and then liquidate my stuff to make "18" all neat and tidy again.   My mother was on board with the repacking idea -- but wanted to buy smaller totes, see through ones.  Guess who won that argument?  Not me of course.  I liked the see through concept but I conceded on the size because it wasn't worth arguing with her. She's always right even when she's wrong and she offered to pay for them.  Gotta pick the battles. 

Here's the first group. $140 worth of small see through plastic.  I insisted on locking lids.  I think these are 50 and 66 quart size (whatever that means).  She thinks we're going to repack the dishes and other kitchen stuff in these.  I'm not even sure they are wide enough, but I guess we'll see.   I counted 30 boxes up in "18" which need to be repacked -- so umm, if we're only buying these little things, that's going to get expensive quick.  But I don't make the rules, I just follow them. 

She tried to tell me that we were moving my dining set and chairs to the basement and I absolutely put my foot down about that. Other than the stuff I throw away (like the crock pot, which I know she's going to fight me on --- but a mouse was living in that box -- so there's no way I'm keeping it) everything is staying up there. I'm not paying for "18" to store my stuff in the basement.  There's enough junk around this house the way it is -- I don't need to add to the chaos.    I'm going to clean it/them off and cover them in plastic.  Another lesson learned about a storage unit -- check the wind direction before renting the stall.  And invest in plastic to protect from dirt.  

Just like the gritty dirt on my dining room set, I'm dreading this task -- because it means repacking my life again -- finding mice in my personal stuff  -- and losing more control. Maybe I could enlist my uber organized sister to be my ally that weekend.  In end I'll still have "18" and a small part of my independence.