Being bur­glar­ized is nev­er expect­ed, but hav­ing your stor­age unit bro­ken into often comes as an even big­ger shock. Most peo­ple think of their stor­age lock­er as a secure, safe place to put the things they no longer have space in the home. They often don’t spend much time con­sid­er­ing how pro­tect­ed the facil­i­ty is noir stor­age unit pro­tec­tion.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, self-stor­age theft is on the rise in North Amer­i­ca, per­haps par­tial­ly thanks to the pop­u­lar­i­ty of tele­vi­sion show about find­ing valu­ables in aban­doned lock­ers.

The best way to ensure the secu­ri­ty of your pos­ses­sions is to choose your stor­age facil­i­ty with great care. Be extreme­ly thor­ough when inspect­ing a facil­i­ty and review all secu­ri­ty fea­tures before book­ing.

Do not hes­i­tate to call the man­ag­er for clar­i­fi­ca­tion if nec­es­sary, and always vis­it the facil­i­ty in per­son before mak­ing any pay­ments.

Here are some things to look for in a good stor­age facil­i­ty:

  • Indoor and out­door areas should be well lit at all times
  • Video sur­veil­lance sys­tems should be employed and vis­i­ble to help deter poten­tial thefts
  • Access con­trols sys­tems which require indi­vid­ual codes, remotes, or secu­ri­ty codes upon entry
  • Indi­vid­ual door alarms to alert the oper­a­tor if an unau­tho­rized user enters a unit

Even once you have cho­sen a good facil­i­ty, there are a few ways to increase the lev­el of secu­ri­ty with­in your own unit.

First, be sure to choose a high-qual­i­ty lock. There is no point in spend­ing extra on secu­ri­ty fea­tures if you are going to use a lock that can be eas­i­ly snipped off with a pair of bolt cut­ters. Instead, choose a disc lock or cylin­der lock with a short shack­le. The longer the shack­les, the eas­i­er it is to get tools into the space and cut it off. Aim for one that just fits the latch.

The most com­mon type of stor­age lock­er theft that occurs is a “crash and grab” theft in which the thief will break into sev­er­al units and quick­ly grab what­ev­er they think looks valu­able that they can car­ry away.

Luck­i­ly, this type of thief is fair­ly easy to foil by sim­ply plac­ing all valu­ables towards the back of the unit. If they have to come into your unit and look around for a long time to find any­thing worth­while, they are less like­ly to take any­thing.

For more infor­ma­tion on how to secure your stor­age unit and oth­er prop­er­ties, con­tact the experts at PROTECTION PLUS ® today!

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Allan Baum
Security Industry veteran with over 30+ years in the industry. Founded family owned and operated Protection Plus in 1994 with his wife and has overseen its growth since. In addition to working with his wife and son, Allan has assigned the role of Chief Canine Officer to his trusted dog Waub, who joins him at the office every day.