# Living out of a storage unit



## Tank42 (Feb 24, 2018)

There is an older thread about this: https://squattheplanet.com/threads/living-in-a-storage-unit.14936/

But I'd like to ask the question a second time: does anyone have any first hand experience sleeping in a monthly storage unit rental?

I'm considering doing this, at least to have a place to ditch my pack and have a change of clothes.


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## TheWindAndRain (Feb 24, 2018)

I lived in several storage units in different cities in America and highly encourage it. Obviously you need a place that offers 24/7 access to the gate or a perimeter that can be easily breached and accessed any time of the night without raising suspicion. It can be very difficult to pull off in big cities downtown or towns that have a lot of homeless people or migrant workers; the city edges or inner suburbs have better spots. Smaller mom and pop places are more possible than big name high security places. Visit a list of them and really judge the owner/manager on how tolerant they would be to a homeless person. My strategy was usually to straight up tell them I was homeless, working, and camping nearby and needed a place to access my stuff 24/7 every night and morning. Just assure them convincingly that you will not be sleeping in the unit and gauge their reaction, count on a few of them saying no, but keep trying for a good one--if they give you a contract after that, they are probably sympathetic and you wont have trouble. Sometimes you don't even want to admit to that to avoid drawing heat to yourself. NEVER admit to sleeping there because there are strict laws they have to follow about it.


A couple examples: One facility I stayed in despite cameras and automated gates since their fences were easy to breach. I started by entering with my motorbike to park it every night then leaving the automated gate on camera THEN sneaking back in through the many gaps in their fences to sleep in my unit. Eventually when I grew comfortable there I stopped sneaking and blatantly entered and left through the gate every night and morning with no trouble. A different facility I stayed in had a landlord that would ask me if I was sleeping in there every chance she saw me, even hired a security guard that would accuse me when i was on premises at night, so I had to camp out a few nights. He left after a month; I went back to sleeping in there with no trouble and I even came back years later to rent and sleep in the same spot with no harassment from that landlord. The good landlords really dont want to catch you but there are still laws they have to follow and in heavily homeless populated areas they just want to keep the sloppy people out.


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## Tude (Feb 24, 2018)

Interesting - I often wondered about these - not the ones I see mostly in the city as they are just blatantly in view but more out of the city. And also curious of this because of lets say crime shows and what not and it will focus on a storage unit sometimes where they have stored stuff at and visited regularly or even it looks lived in.


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## Tank42 (Feb 24, 2018)

Thanks for posting! Good info.


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## Pervert Pirate (Apr 27, 2018)

Ohio outlawed it a few years ago. I guess they figure anyone doing it is trying to break into other units and steal for a living while dwelling in one of the units.


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