These days, many people are downsizing their homes to reduce expenses. A small house or home may not only cost less in terms of rent or a mortgage payment, but also costs less to heat and cool, and uses less electricity. The first part of downsizing is decluttering -- giving away, reusing, recycling, or throwing out whatever an individual or a family can live without. Part of the decluttering process, for many people, is storing items that are not needed year round in a self storage unit. The second part is making a small house plan: exactly how much space do you truly need to live in? Some people even draw up their own small house plans. For many, the downsizing process, especially when it is supported by good storage options, leads straight to tiny houses and the tiny house movement -- a movement for people who are determined to live in the smallest possible space. [More]

Work has begun on a commercial development in Denver’s historic Hangar 2, at what used to be Lowry Air Force Base. Hangar 2, like its twin, Hangar 1, was built in the 1930s. After Lowry Air Force Base closed in 1994, the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum was developed in Hangar 1. Development in Hangar 2 is meant to provide funds to help pay for renovations to Wings Over the Rockies. The two hangars are adjacent to each other. After it is restored and renovated, Hangar 2 will include a self storage facility and several commercial businesses. [More]

Cardiff Self Storage, a storage facility located in the United Kingdom, has decided to participate in a campaign to encourage local college students to recycle unwanted items. The recycling campaign, called Get It Out for Cardiff, will donate clothing to the Salvation Army, and nonperishable food items to FareShare. The campaign will also benefit the British Heart Foundation and Raise and Give. So far the campaign has been a phenomenal success, raising several tons of materials to donate to local charities. [More]

In response to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, legislators in Westchester County, New York have been considering changing local gun storage laws to make it possible for gun owners to more quickly access their guns in the event that they need to defend themselves in their homes. Gun advocates had hoped that legislators would change the laws, which they argued violated U.S. citizens’ right to bear arms. Legislators last week decided to hold off on making any changes to gun storage laws, at least for the time being. But the dialogue will probably continue for some time. [More]

Analysts say that the decline in new home sales is starting to hurt moving businesses, which normally would be starting to hit their peak season at this time of the year. In July of this year, new home sales fell to their lowest level since the government began tracking home sales in 1963. According to the American Moving and Storage Association industry fact sheet, almost 50 percent of residential moves occur when families upgrade their homes (looking for more space) or buy their first home. Now that home sales are down, Americans are moving less, and some moving companies are suffering. [More]

A few weeks ago, the Seattle Seahawks invited news reporters from ESPN into their summer training facility -- to view their new storage system. The Seahawks, like many businesses that are trying to save on storage space, have found a unique technological solution to their problem -- they are using storage shelving and racks on mechanized wheel bases. Wheeled storage racks mean that items can be stored back to back, and wheeled out when something needs to be taken out or added to storage. As a result, it is not necessary to budget as much space for aisles between the racks. [More]

The FBI arrested a Florida man last week, saying that he was trying to sell counterfeit Picasso, Matisse, and John Singer Sargent paintings. He was also alleged to have forged Sotheby’s documents proving the authenticity of his paintings, and to have mailed those fraudulent documents to an undercover FBI agent. Sixty-eight-year-old Luigi Cugini, allegedly a well known con artist, is said to have told his customers that he was the grandson of Joseph Coletti (now dead), a sculptor from the Boston area. Cugini marketed his paintings as having been part of Coletti’s personal collection, saying that they were worth millions of dollars. Cugini sometimes kept the paintings in his Broward County, Florida apartment, but often kept them in a Massachusetts self storage unit. [More]

The alarm at Castle Self Storage of 464 Quincy Ave., Braintree, Massachusetts, went off in the middle of the night last Tuesday (August 17). Police say that the alarm appears to have been triggered by a would-be burglar. The burglar broke the glass on the front door and then tried to enter interior units, attempting to pry open their doors with a hammer, but the security alarm scared him away before he could take anything. [More]

At this time of the year, we hear a lot about tornadoes in the news. But this Monday, a Sherman, Texas self storage facility was hit by a different, but potentially just as devastating, kind of wind that can also come from a severe thunderstorm -- a microburst, which is a kind of downdraft. A-American Self-Storage lost the top layer of the roof off one of its five rows of self storage units to high winds from a microburst. Fortunately, A-American’s roof is well made. The lower layers of the roof held steady, and tenants later reported that only a few light sprinkles of water, at worst, were able to penetrate the damaged roof during the remainder of the storm. [More]

In a word, yes. Or at least, it will be able to, once it is built and launched. GPS technology can do that now, anytime that your cell phone with GPS or other GPS tracking device is within range of a satellite. Then it can give you turn by turn directions explaining how you can get there. But when the new GPS III satellites are launched in 2014, GPS will become even more accurate, providing more precise information and giving directions that are even more carefully synchronized with the movements of your phone or car. Working with new applications such as Facebook Places, or Twitter’s new location option, new and old GPS satellites will be able to beam your precise GPS location, including the coordinates of any self storage facility that you may use, to your friends (and other interested parties) all over the world. The technology is useful -- but does it compromise your locational privacy? [More]