Remember the good old days of Monty Python? If not, you likely have no sense of humor and should stop reading this immediately.
 
I know from my experience of meeting hundreds of self-storage professionals over the years that many of you do, truly, have a funny bone. This is one of the reasons weve added a monthly comic to the magazine, Adventures in Storage, by John Roser. If youve missed any of Johns monthly slices of storage humor, visit www.insideselfstorage.com and type Adventures in Storage in the search box.
 
For those of you who miss the days of John Cleese and his holy grail of comedy, I bring to you a gift that has absolutely nothing to do with self-storage. Below are excerpts from an e-mail that arrived in my inbox last week. If it strikes a chord with you, feel free to go online and read the whole letter. Do it just because we all need to take advantage of something completely differentat least once in a while.

 
To: The citizens of the United States of America
From: John Cleese
 
In light of your failure to nominate competent candidates for President of the U.S.A. and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

The letter U will be reinstated in words such as favour and neighbour. Likewise, you will learn to spell doughnut without skipping half the letters, and the suffix -ize will be replaced by the suffix -ise.

Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up vocabulary in the dictionary). Using the same 27 words interspersed with filler noises such as like and you know is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter u and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

Guns should only be handled by adults. If youre not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then youre not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every 20 seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Dont try rugbythe South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game that is not played outside of America.

You must tell us who killed JFK. Its been driving us mad.

An internal-revenue agent (i.e., tax collector) from Her Majestys Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
 
God save the Queen.

Before I had children, I made a solemn promise to my husband. I would not, under any circumstances, name our son after him. You see, my husband has a horrible, very feminine, German family name. I wont embarrass him by publishing it here, but I will tell you even his parents chose to call him by his middle name until a friends father pinned a nickname on him. Of course, as nicknames go, its only marginally better than his real first or middle nameand it stuck to this day.

This week, The Today Show and Ancestry.com share quirky, absurd, shocking and downright mean-spirited names parents have chosen over the years. Sadly, its not just the rich and famous who hand down monikers like William Williams, Mayo Head,  Brock Lee, Rusty Nail and, my favorite, Moxie Crimefighter (courtesy of Magician Penn Jillette, naturally).

Naming your storage facility can be much like naming a child. Choosing one that doesnt relate will lead to confusion, but stamping a bizarre name could solicit snickers instead of sales. For more on choosing a powerful name, check out this article from the ISS archives. And if you have a great name for your facility, Id love to hear from you. You can click on the 'Leave Comment' link below or e-mail me at [email protected].

Last week, the staff of Inside Self-Storage held a meeting to discuss the performance of our various websites. Last year, we started using an independent, third-party web-analytics provider to help us evaluate the traffic we're getting at www.insideselfstorage.com and the other sites we manage. In addition to larger statistics such as overall page views, unique visitors and visits, we examined the individual pages that are getting high interest from our web users. I was a little surprised to see that one of the pages getting significant views is the one relating to storage condos.

It's not that I didn't know the building of storage condominiums is a hot topic. The increased number of inquiries we get on the subject tells me the product is growing in popularity. I just hadn't realized the extent of the interest on our particular site. But apparently, hundreds of users per month are looking to read about this topic in our pages.

In addition to several articles and blog posts, ISS has conducted a webinar on the subject, presented and sponsored by Mako Steel. (To view a free recording of this web event, click here.) Mako brought in as one of its presenters Mr. Ted Diets, the owner and developer of Eucalyptus at Beaumont, which I've mentioned in this blog before. Ted's facility offers fully enclosed garage-style storage for boats and RVs, but the units are for sale, not rent. And these condos are selling like hotcakes.

Just today an article went up on Mass Media Distribution Newswire about Ted's project. It contains some interesting tidbits:

Eucalyptus at Beaumont will offer a total of 112 condo units. The first sales phase of 30 units launched in October of 2006; they sold out in two days. Phase two began in July 2007 with 48 units up for sale. These sold out in about three weeks. And they didn't all sell to California locals. Ten went to customers in Hawaii and one to an Australian.

I've asked this question in the blog before, and now I want to ask it again: What do you guys think about this condo concept? Do any of you have concerns about how this "craze" will affect traditional, rental-style storage? Hit the 'Leave Comment' link below and let me know your thoughts.

Too often the media runs a story, sometimes even a sensational one, but then the story fades and we dont hear about its conclusion (if there is one). Several months ago, I found this little piece in the London Free Press: High-Rise Concerns, Not Hells Angels, Block Storage Development.

The gist of the story was that the London, Ontario, city council's planning committee became deadlocked over a self-storage project proposed for two adjacent properties. One parcel was occupied by a church and the other by the Hells Angels. The article said neighbors were more concerned by the threat of having a high-rise on the site than the biker gang. Some committee members opposed the project because the land is zoned residential, and they considered a self-storage operation incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood.

Yesterday, London Free Press ran a follow-up to the story. The issues were resolved, and the storage facility allowed. Seems the local residents see self-storage as a preferable neighbor to the Angels.

Its good to have a conclusion even to a small news item like thisespecially when the end of the story is favorable to self-storage.

The weekend was a hard one for northerners. Ice storms debilitated many towns by dropping trees on power lines, kind of like a monstrous game of pick-up sticks, without any of the fun. Electricity blinked a few times in my house, and then it shut down completely by 10:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The house and street were dark, like a black hole compared to the white, icy lawns and slick streets. It should have been quiet, but the windy rain crystallized trees and kept windows knocking and rooftops creaking. Throughout the night, more sleet fell and coated our world, layer upon layer.
 
We were without power for nearly 24 hours. In the course of one powerless day, its easy to reflect on what it was like for the pioneersexcept they really had nothing to compare their lives against like we do. As soon as the rooms get cold or you have to blindly find your way downstairs in the middle of the night, you longingly remember what its like to have light and a constant supply of heat.
 
On Sunday night, I began to wonder how Id get my Monday-morning layout in the works. What if my computer was affected by the power outage? I also started to think our roof would cave from the weight of the ice. Why hadnt we cleaned those gutters out after the fall to make sure there wouldnt be backed up?
 
How are you faring this winter? Did you make sure you stayed on top of all the maintenance at your self-storage facility so youd be protected from ice buildup in the gutters? For hints on surviving the winter wear-and-tear on my house, I visited the DIY (do-it-yourself) network. Many of the pointers apply to any building and not just a home. I also learned about heat strips and gutters.

Need more specifics about how to best weather the storms in your neck of the woods and keep on top of maintenance at your site? How about protecting your computer and hardware from power surges and electrical outages? What a disaster it would be to lose all your tenant data in one blink of the eye. Tune into the maintenance category of the ISS article archives, and youre sure to be ready for anything Mother Nature decides to send your way.

While theres a lot of talk about a pending (or current, if you prefer) recession, the housing slump and other doom-and-gloom, the self-storage industry seems to be going strong, according to an article I recently read in the San Antonio Business Journal. The article states that one in every 10 households leases a storage unit.
 
The evidence is also inside every issue of ISS. Youll find million-dollar self-storage deals each month on the real estate pages, or you can examine regional happenings in Mike McCunes column, Real Estate Roundup. The housing industry may be floundering, but the self-storage market is doing OK.
 
One place thats seeing a huge surge in self-storage business is Hawaii, but theyre not just erecting your basic facilities with the usual bells and whistles. The Lock Up in Honolulu is an eight-story giant, featuring carpeted units and hallways. Another facility offers conference rooms, Wi-Fi access and fresh coffee. It seems the development of more condos on the islands has led to the need for more self-storage solutions.
 
While continued growth for the industry is a good thing, it also leads to more competition for your customers dollar. But were here to help. Spend some time on the ISS website. Youll find fresh marketing ideas, ways security can boost your customers comfort levels, or how to increase revenue with add-on profit centers.

As always, I encourage your feedback. Simply click on the Leave Comment button below or shoot me an e-mail at [email protected].