“I know my things are safe and sound and only one day away from my living room when I want something back.”
By Ronald G.
When I relocated to NYC from Chicago, I quickly needed to learn how people managed to live in those small NYC apartments. In Chicago, my salary afforded me a 1300 square foot 2 bedroom apartment overlooking Millennium Park in a full service building. In New York City, the same salary afforded me 700 square feet in a pre-war third floor walkup apartment in the Gramercy section of the city. Storage was going to be an issue. This apartment had only one closet, but still I couldn’t wait to move in!
After I moved, I had so many boxes of clothing, books, shoes, CD’s, old albums, video games, paperwork and knickknacks scattered around my apartment that it started looking like I was living inside of a Self-Storage locker. I asked my realtor how people live in these small apartments. She told me to think small, shop at Ikea and recommended something called “on-demand bin storage” as a solution to the closet shortage. I was thinking I needed to find a self-storage facility and dreaded the idea of using it. I didn’t have a car and envisioned trying to move stuff using cabs, trains and buses. I didn’t need to store furniture and larger items. I just had boxes full of stuff so bin storage seemed like a good alternative to Self Storage.
I Googled all the New York City bin storage operators and after carefully researching price, service, reviews and my basic hunch; RedBin was my choice. The price was surprisingly affordable at $7.00 per bin per month. The at home pickup and delivery was a real life saver and the reviews seemed pretty good.
The hunch part came into play as the other on-demand storage companies I spoke to couldn’t and wouldn’t tell me where there warehouse was located! They told me not to worry and that it was safe and secure, but I was leery. I thought it was strange that a storage company was hiding the location of their facility. After all, this is my personal belongings and felt I had a right to know. I just envisioned some run down dirty old warehouse located in the cheapest and seediest part of town. Not for my video games, no way! I received the same convoluted side stepping answers to this basic question from all the companies except for RedBin. In fact the RedBin Storage rep. actually encouraged me to visit their facility. I took her up on the invitation, scheduled an appointment and took the “D” train to Brooklyn. I was pleased to encounter a security guard at the front door and once inside I saw a clean, bright, busy warehouse packed with thousands of red bins neatly placed on racks. The warehouse manager gave me a tour of the facility and answered any questions that I had. Pretty cool business concept, I was impressed.
Easy and Affordable:
Ordering bins was a snap using their website at www.redbin.com. Bins cost $7.00 per bin per month. I ordered and scheduled my free bin drop off and my free bin pickup online.
At home delivery:
The uniformed driver showed up on time and dropped off the bins right to my door. I received an automatic text message from the driver advising me that he was coming over and provided me with a tracking link so I could see his progress. Neat feature!
The bins held more than I originally thought they would. (This is often mentioned in the reviews as well.) I packed my things into the bins and when the driver came back, he photographed the top of each bin before sealing the bins with a zip tie. The photos showed up on the RedBin login account. This is a great way for me to manage what I have in storage so I can identify specific bins when requesting a return.
I’m loving life in the Big Apple and thanks to RedBin, I can have all my stuff available to me at any time and not have to actually live with all of my stuff. I know my things are safe and sound and only one day away from my living room when I want something back. Living in a small NYC apartment has its challenges and storage is certainly one of them, but RedBin solved it perfectly. On-demand storage really is a must when living in this town and choosing RedBin certainly was the right choice for me.