In one of his notably famous routines, Comedian George Carlen stated that trying to find a place for your stuff is the meaning of life. He further waxed poetic about your home being that place, and when your home is too small for all your stuff, he professed that you move some of it to a storage locker.
Yes, Carlen recognized an entire industry devoted to storing your stuff.
Today these “self storage facilities” are high tech, like Extra Space Storage located at 1432 W Ogden Ave. These facilities no longer are simple steel buildings with chain fences.
Newer storage facilities like Extra Space Storage have business centers where you can rent a unit, buy storage supplies, and coordinate referrals for moving and packing. In addition, Extra Space Storage on Ogden, built in 2009 by the second largest owner (of the same name) of such facilities in the country, has 24-hour camera surveillance, an alarm for each unit, climate control in 60 percent of the units, and an overall design of the facility that allows for multiple configurations of the 726 total units, which range from 5’ by 5’ to 10’ by 30’. Plus, Todd Dooley, the manager of Extra Space Storage on Ogden lives at the facility; he has an apartment in the corner of the second floor.
Todd told me recently that living on the property lets him connect with customers and keep an eye on everything in the city that he loves.
“I also love Naperville, the people and all the things to do,” Todd added.
Extra Space Storage also owns and operates a similar facility located at 3459 Rt. 59 in Naperville, that is a bit larger and provides storage for RV’s.
Extra Space Storage on Ogden and Rt 59 also hold auctions each month similar to those storage auction shows on cable (provided they have units for sale), but Todd confesses that he has yet to see anything sold like on the TV shows.
