Two Young Boys Found Living In Ewing Storage Facility
The lines between storage and residence continue to blur. As storage facilities increase the quality of their offerings, providing a range of electricity, cleanliness, coverage, even heating and cooling…some people resort to living in the storage unit meant only for their possessions.
“A mother arrested for a domestic violence incident in Trenton this morning was found to have her 5- and 10-year-old boys living inside a narrow storage unit in Ewing, police said today.
Trenton Officer Robert Arnwine, who interviewed Johnson after her arrest, went to the Extra Space Storage facility on the 1400 block of Prospect Street to check out the woman’s claims her boys were inside one of the units there, Kieffer said.
“They open it up,” Kieffer said of the officers who went to the unit. “That’s where their house is – that’s where they’re living.”
“It was just filthy in there,” he added.
Both children were taken to Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Hopewell to be checked out and were released to the care of the state Department of Child and Families.” – NJ.com
The good news in this story is that both children were recovered in decent health and hopefully will receive rehabilitation. The court system will then decide whether or not they are to be placed in foster care, but it seems like a viable option based on the details of this story.
The criminal activity aside, this story is of particular interest to self storage owners and tenants. Owners need to be aware of extended stay time of residents. Facilities like DAK have 24/7 video surveillance so it’s much easier to notice suspicious behavior. Large facilities without surveillance have plenty of nooks and crannies for people to escape into. If tenants see that kind of behavior they should notify the owner immediately.
It’s sad to hear about the plight of these two children. Of course, the storage facility may have been the only thing keeping them from absolute homelessness. In keeping with that reality, we should treat situations like these with tact, care, and prompt action.
Yellow Pages Review Giveaway!
The internet may be a big place, but “small town rules” still apply. The self storage industry is all about maintaining good business practices and helping local people. After all, it’s our neighbors who will get the most use out of our rental units.
That being the case, online reviews can be a powerful way to inform other local users of the quality of our product. We never really know who will choose to review us or what they will say, but information is powerful no matter what. Good reviews make us feel warm and fuzzy and bad reviews give us a chance to rectify possible problems.
Some of our tenants have been kind enough to leave reviews on Google and Yahoo. There is another location, YellowPages.com, that we feel would benefit from the same kind of treatment. That’s why we are willing to give away some sweet discounts to anyone willing to get involved.
Submit A Review, Get Entered For Prizes!
This giveaway is quite simple. Here are the terms of entering and winning:
- Go to YellowPages.com. Create a new username and password if you do not already have one.
- Leave a review and star rating on the site. You are NOT obligated to leave a positive review, just be honest.
- Come back here and give us your basic info so we can reach out to you if you win.
What’s the Prize?
For every 5 reviews we receive we will be raffling off one $35.00 rent credit. That means the more reviewers, the more winners! This contest will be ending January 1st so get those reviews in asap.
If you have any questions or problems, just email us.
SANDY
If you are storing anything you may need to get through Sandy, please GET IT NOW. If the power goes out, the gate will not open. We try our best to help out but I may be dealing with storm issues at home. Hope we fair OK here. We have never had flood issues at DAK as we are well above flood level.
Hawaii Self Storage Owner finds Decompossing Body Parts
When a mortuary service provider defaults on their storage payments, you might have to assume the worst when clearing out their storage space. Unfortunately, one self storage owner in Hawaii found exactly what he wasn’t looking for.
As reported by Inside Self Storage:
Employees at Stor Keeper Self Storage in Honolulu uncovered decomposing body parts in a storage unit after the tenant went into default for non-payment. The human tissue was being kept in a freezer.
Facility staff entered the unit to conduct an inventory after the tenant, Bryan Avery, CEO of the Hawaii Institute of Anatomy, became 90 days past due on his rent. When facility owner Christopher Ulu called Avery about the freezer, Avery told him human tissue was stored inside. Ulu called police, who later opened the freezer, which had a horrible odor. The body parts were later identified by the medical examiner’s office as belonging to two individuals.
One silver lining of this particular situation is that the storage unit does not appear to have been auctioned off. The public relations of finding decomposing flesh in an auctioned off unit would not have been positive, to say the least. However, it would have made for a very catchy episode of storage wars.
One curious aspect of this case is that the original owner of the unit, Bryan Avery, is not expected to have charges filed against him. This is not the first incident Avery has had with taking body parts out of the morgue and storing them in unusual locations. I suppose there are more details explaining why he is not culpable for this kind of activity…which would be good to know.
