Let's talk about self storage.

I received a call from a customer because they noticed a strong smell in their hallway from moth balls. I don't know that I can identify who has them, but would like to send out an email out to the climate controlled customers. There is a section in the TSSA lease 36 (a) (8) items having noxious smell in Lessor's sole judgement. Would this fall under that? The smell is strong and affects the items of everyone in the building. Has anyone in this group experienced this issue? How did you handle it? Any suggestions on how I could word the email? Thanks!

------------------------------
Cori Herzog
Excess Storage
Brenham TX
(979) 836-6735
------------------------------

We have only had this issue one time where we smelled the moth balls. No tenants complained though and that tenant ended up moving out before it became an issue. I would love to hear the feedback from others on this in case it comes up again. Thank you for the question!

------------------------------
Terri Wood
Executive Assistant
Ideal Self Storage
Waco TX
(254) 301-4071
------------------------------

Hi Cori,

I had this happen several years ago. I narrowed it down to a few spaces and contacted all of them until I found the one who had moth balls in there. I asked them to remove them due to the terrible odor. I was lucky that the tenant responded to my kindness with their own. Especially after they came to remove them and experienced the smell first hand. We have had other odors that weren't as easy to identify and I called the new tenants in that area and asked them to come up and check their space for forgotten food, tires, gasoline cans...whatever we suspected the smell might be from. That has always gotten rid of it within a few days.

------------------------------
JoLea Conn
OnSite Manager
ALL*STAR STORAGE
Richmond TX
(281) 341-7867
------------------------------

Cori,

I was fairly sure I knew the answer to this one (notify tenant and if they don't respond the paragraph you mentioned gives you the right to remove the noxious smelling items), but decided to check with counsel for an "official legal" answer. A lot of times the speed at which you will act is dictated by the level of "offense" (e.g., smell of something dead requires immediate action, something like moth balls, while annoying, might have you giving a little more time for response).

Here is his response:

Best practice would dictate having the facility send a notice (and call/email/text) the potential offending tenants to let them know there is a noxious smell coming from their units (smelling like mothballs), and that they need to remove them immediately (and point out the provision in the lease that prohibits noxious smells "in Lessor's sole judgment" and that failing to abide this provision could result in their default under the lease).

If they then fail to remove the same, next step would be giving the 7 days' notice of access (you can useTSSA form SP-1 to notify about opening the unit and SP-2 if you have to do that if tenant won't respond) to inspect/confirm which unit is in fact the one giving off the noxious smell. If the smell is confirmed to be coming from a unit, the facility can once again contact the tenant about removal (and/or put tenant in default and exercise appropriate remedies).

------------------------------
Ginny Sutton
Executive Director
Texas Self Storage Association, Inc.
Round Rock TX
(512) 374-9089
------------------------------