You hate to read about a storage facilityits owner and employees as well as tenantssuffering damage by natural disaster or vandals. But it's particularly difficult news to read this time of year, when you generally feel an onslaught of good will toward your fellow Man (unless you're in a shopping mall).
Just before Thanksgiving, a fire destroyed most of a 34-unit building at Allstore self-storage in Madison Township, Pa., leaving 30 tenants to pick through the remains of their valuables. According to the Dec. 17 edition of The Times-Tribune, the police suspect arson as the cause, but this wasn't the crux of the article. No, the headline was "Storage renters advised to buy insurance."
Writer Kris Fedysky uses the pieceand the Allstore exampleto advise storage users of three key steps when renting:
1. Find a facility with a security system.
2. Purchase a lock specially designed for storage.
3. Most important, insure the items stored.
All fine and reasonable points, and at least this wasn't an all-out assault on the facility owner, who obviously suffered losses of his own.
What I want to know is, what's with the sudden increase of fire-inspired vandalism at storage sites? This is beyond mischievious pranks. I hope the cops apprehend the villains. At the very least, I hope the yahoos get a lump of flaming coal in their stockings.