Most storage units are rented for a good reason: a move, a renovation, a parent's house being sold, a divorce or a deployment. The reason passes, but the unit stays, and the monthly rent quietly adds up. Clearing it out is less work than it looks, if it is done in the right order and someone else does the lifting.
Start with the rental agreement
Before you plan anything, check your rental agreement and ask the office what the facility needs from you before you move out, and whether it has rules for trucks or for who must be present. Every facility sets its own, so ask rather than guess.
Decide what to keep before the crew arrives
The hardest part of a storage unit cleanout is deciding, not carrying. If you can, visit the unit once on your own. Open boxes near the front, look at the furniture, and take photos of everything. It is common to find that much less of it is worth keeping than you expected.
Pull out what you are keeping and put it in your car, or stack it at the front of the unit with a clear label. Paperwork, photographs, jewelry and anything with a name or account number on it should come home with you rather than go on any truck.
Three piles, not a hundred decisions
If the unit is full, do not try to decide on every item one by one. Make three piles instead: keep, ask the family, and go. Anything you have not thought about since the unit was rented usually belongs in the third pile. The middle pile gets one round of photos sent to whoever might want something, with a date to answer by. Whatever nobody claims by then joins the go pile, and the unit can be cleared in a single visit.
If you cannot get there yourself
If you no longer live near the unit, it can still be cleared without you being there, as long as the facility will let the crew in. You arrange access with the facility, send us photos of the open unit, and tell us what to keep. We load out the rest.
What to bring on the day
If you are meeting the crew, bring the key or the lock combination, any gate code the facility gave you, and a box or two for small things you decide to keep at the last minute. Wear shoes you can stand in for an hour on concrete. The crew does the lifting; your job is to point and to say yes or no to anything nobody decided in advance.
What a crew can take, and what stays
Furniture, mattresses, boxes, appliances, electronics, tools and household goods can all be loaded from a storage unit. Hazardous materials cannot: paint, chemicals, fuel, asbestos and medical waste stay behind. Storage units often hold half-used paint cans and gas cans from a garage, so check the back corners before the day.
What a storage unit cleanout costs
A storage unit is priced from photos, because the size of the unit tells you very little about what is in it: a ten-by-ten packed to the ceiling holds far more than a larger unit with a few pieces of furniture. Take photos with the door fully open, from the front and from each side if you can step inside, and say which facility it is and how far the unit is from where a truck can park. Storage unit cleanout cost depends on that load and on the walk to the truck, not on the unit number, and you get the price before anything is moved.
On the day
The crew meets you at the facility, confirms what stays, and loads everything else onto the truck; if you are not there, the access you arranged with the facility lets us in. Once the unit is empty, whatever the facility asks for at move-out is the last step, and the rent can stop.