In mid 2006, I did an inventory of a trailer that a client had used.

The records were damp and moldy with rats nests in many of the boxes.

On 8/28/07, Patrick Cunningham <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I saw this article last week and was so flabbergasted that I set it
> aside until I cooled down.
>
> I just wandered around the NPSA's website
> (http://www.npsa-us.org/index.php). It's pretty lean, although they
> seem to do a pretty good job inventing new uses for trailers and
> containers (including "affordable housing" and "classrooms"). They have
> been pushing the records storage angle for a while.
>
> My opinion is that you see an industry (and this is very definitely a
> trade association) faced with a glut of containers (my understanding is
> that it is cheaper for Asian companies to continually build new
> containers, ship them here with product, then leave them here, rather
> than shipping them back empty) that needs to invent new uses for the
> containers.
>
> Frankly, I can't imagine anyone in our business that would think that
> parking a container out in the parking lot is a good idea for records
> storage. Nevermind the security issue. Nevermind the climate control
> issue. Nevermind the issue that some one will have to go into a dark
> trailer to try and find something that has been piled up inside. And
> you can't exactly have one of these up on wheels and install shelving
> in the left half of the trailer -- the thing will roll over. It's a
> false economy and the possibility that someone could roll up and
> literally drive away with your records is an incredibly scary thought.
>
> So let's recap... this association wants people to rent a trailer or
> container and store records in that space. These things can leak. The
> walls can be cut with any sort of metal-cutting saw. You'll likely have
> to padlock the thing -- and most padlocks can be cut. There will be no
> climate control, so not only will the records suffer, but anyone who
> has to go in there will suffer as well. There are no lights, so whoever
> goes in there will need to bring their own. You can't efficiently store
> boxes in there (the center of gravity could roll the trailer), so they
> likely get piled up to the roof -- making for crushed boxes and hugely
> inefficient retrieval. Oh, and someone could drive up and take the
> whole thing right off of your property.
>
> You're dealing with a space that is roughly 9 feet wide and up to 53
> feet long -- about 475 square feet. When I have packed trailers full of
> records boxes on pallets, the trailer held just over 1000 boxes. Even
> if you managed to really pack the thing full, you're talking about a
> smidge more than 2000 boxes -- and that means the boxes will be piled
> 10 high. And the smaller ones are less efficient.
>
> Somehow, having several dozen of those really small containers around
> (you know, the ones people use when they are remodeling their kitchen)
> seems like a terrible waste of space and hugely inefficient. And if you
> have them hauled to the moving and storage company, a retrieval means
> getting several containers back and rummaging around in them. False
> economy, if you ask me.
>
> I'm not exactly a cheerleader for commercial records centers, but the
> folks at PRISM ought to be all over this one.
>
>
>
> Patrick Cunningham, CRM
> [log in to unmask]
>
> "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
> Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
>
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