When you think storage unit, there are a few things that come to mind. Furniture, appliances, perhaps even a rehearsal space for your crappy garage band. But not everyone uses their storage space for such straightforward things.
From the wacky to the wonderful (and the just plain weird), here are some of the more… “unique” ways that people have used our storage units.
All Aboard!
One customer choo-choo-chooses to keep his hobby separate from his wife.
One of our Melbourne centres is home to quite an extraordinary sight. A gentleman came to us several years ago to relocate his model train hobby from his home because his wife “wasn’t a fan” of his pastime. Since he was retiring soon, he wanted somewhere quiet to tinker with his trains on weekends.
Now, inside his 6m x 6m unit lives a full replica of Melbourne and its train and tram system. Whenever a new building goes up in the city, this model train enthusiast creates a carefully scaled model of it and adds it to his mini city.
There’s about 2 square metres free in the middle of the space, so he can climb under his model and stand in the centre, keeping all the trains and trams on schedule. If that’s not a little bit cute, we don’t know what is.
Collingwood Legend Lives On
Collingwood immortal and Brownlow medallist, Len Thompson, was storing with us for a while before he passed away.
Not knowing whose unit it was, we initially went to catalogue the unit and send the goods to auction when it fell too far into arrears. But then we discovered who the unit belonged to and, instead, we got in touch with the Collingwood Football Club, who donated the unit to Len’s family.
Inside, they found all kinds of memorabilia and Collingwood Immortal paperwork. If they hadn’t donated the unit back to the family, his Brownlow medal may have been lost forever.
Extra, Extra!
This customer will have the last laugh when that specific news item from 2008 becomes hugely valuable for some reason.
A customer at our Geelong storage centre has been collecting the newspaper every day for over a decade in case a particular paper becomes valuable one day. Her unit is stacked from floor to ceiling with old Geelong advertiser papers. She goes through them around every 3 months, but she never throws any away. You never know, eh?
You’re an Animal
There are some things you just don’t expect to see when you open a storage unit.
When a Victoria customer’s business went into bankruptcy, we had to cut the lock to their unit and catalogue its contents. When we rolled up the door, we were greeted by floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with taxidermied animals. Cats, dogs, birds, snakes, squirrels, possums, and spiders. The ‘creator’ didn’t seem to get the animals’ faces quite right, though, giving us quite a laugh at their unusual expressions.
Some animals had even been turned into lamps, and one Labrador had a speaker and sub-woofer installed. (We’re not kidding.)
Someone bought the entire unit at auction, started a ‘bad taxidermy’ website, and made a bit of money out of the whole debacle. Good for them.
If you’re wondering what poorly stuffed animal carcasses might look like, wonder no more.
These are just some of the unusual uses of our storage units that we’ve stumbled across over the years. While we do welcome some pretty weird stuff, be sure to read up on what you can’t put into storage before you hire a unit. Please.
