Storage Wars

“It’s okay Kimberley, it's just the things that go bump in the night, they can't see where they are going so they bump into walls and such, nothing to be afraid of.” said mom “Maybe they need glasses, they will see better.” said I. This conversation is one I remember having with my mom when I was about 6 or 7 years old. For as long as I can look back, I have always had a fear of the dark. Why? Still till this day i am not sure. Maybe, because i can not see, maybe the fear of the unknown or possibly a combination of both. Whatever the reason does not matter, nor would it have helped me the night the storage war began.

As you can probably guess, my story takes place at a storage facility. A brand new one at that. From the outside it looked like an upscale establishment and so did the inside to be honest. However, little did we know, that after dark, this would all change; at least on the inside.

The silence was almost deafening in that place after about 6:30 pm. Mostly everyone had gone home, including the workers. This facility was open until 10 pm, later if you knew the lay of the land and how everything worked together. Unfortunately, my husband and I were two people who knew these things and later we would come to wonder why we ever cared to know.

My ghost story begins towards the end of fall, coming into the winter months. The nights were chilly, but not quite freezing, thank god. Any who, we chose this particular facility because it was close by, brand new, glistening and you couldn't beat the price. We finally purchased a unit and began moving our stuff in. At first their staff was annoyingly attentive and friendly but that changed as the days went on. Now these actions are nothing new to me; as my husband and i had already experienced this sort of behavior from others many times before. I came to find after being homeless for just a little over a year at this point, that people would be accepting, friendly and eager to help until they saw us ride up on bicycles or riding up on bikes with a trailer full of stuff. Instantly, the majority of people immediately changed their demeanor and actions. We were automatically thrown into the typical stereotype that everyone associates the word “Homeless” with, “drug addict, dirty, thief, untrustworthy, scum of the earth non-citizens.” So just like i said, about a week to us being at this facility, it all began and so did everything else. Let the war commence.

DAY 1:

It was an especially cool day out and we were already running late for something but we had to run to storage first. It was about 2 pm and in order to get into the facility you had to put in a code and the office could impulsively deny access when they saw fit; and today was one of those days. As the dreaded DENY word went across the machine, I looked up and there was the evil witch from the office staring at us with annoyance. “Miss Ashton, may i speak with you please?” She said. I painfully followed her back inside to the front desk, where she preceded to tell me this, “i just wanted you to be aware that we have been receiving complaints about you guys and having your bicycles upstairs, as well as, ever since you moved your stuff in there has been a foul smell on the 2nd floor, it was not there before.” My response, “So what are you trying to say?” Mind you i already knew what she was trying to say; i wanted to see if she had the audacity to say it to my face. To my surprise she did. “Simply put this is a clean well maintained facility and people like you, with all your things and coming and going constantly sets a bad example for our place and your people are not the type we want here.” The evil witch finally said it! I waited for this day, I practiced a thousand times what I would say to the next stuck up snob who put me in that stereotypical assumption. “Well that is weird about the smell, I do apologize if it was from us, and as for the bike thing we are not homeless, we just don't have a car right now, but i will make a point to lock them downstairs. Sorry for the inconvenience, it won't happen again.” WAIT! What just happened? NOOO! How could i say that to her? Not at all what i had planned to say. I was so flustered, i just had to get out of there. I kicked myself for days about what i said. Evil witch 1, Homeless “drug addict” 0

DAY2:

After my, “oh so fierce comeback to the evil witch, i refused to be there on the days she worked and if we had to be there, i wouldn't go until after 6 pm, when everyone left for the night. We waited a few days and then we went back to get a few things. We got there at almost 10 pm. In fact my husband thought his bike was stuck in the elevator because it would not come back up after he sent it down. That's when we realized it was 1030 pm. “Great.” I said with such frustration my husband didn't even say anything; which is a first for him, that man always has something to say. At this moment I was freaking out. Thinking, “great we're going to get arrested for trespassing or something; but then my curious husband comes up with the idea to just go downstairs get the stuff out of the elevator and off we go. Only one problem, CAMERAS. We will be seen leaving the place. My husband decided to go exploring to find a way out and I went back to our storage to gather what's left and sit and think for a minute. While sitting in this beat up old lawn chair waiting for my husband to come back, I thought I heard a voice. I immediately stood up and looked down the hallway but there was nothing or no one. “Fantastic, I'm going insane.” i thought to myself. “I can't be.” I said out loud. My husband coming from behind me said “you can't be what?” I jumped out of my skin when I heard him. “Don't do that.” I yelled. After my heart went back in my chest, I explained what I heard. Bewilderment was the look across his face and all he said was “I know a way out, let's go and we can come back tomorrow.”