What a storage unit cleanout costs in San Diego

The short answer

Storage units price off the truck ladder, because a unit is measured in volume rather than in objects.

Those are guides, not quotes - a 10x10 packed floor to ceiling holds more than a 10x10 with a path down the middle. Send photos and the tier gets confirmed before you book. Minimum per visit is $75.

Or price it per item if the unit is thin: sofa $126, dresser $126, mattress and box spring set $143, TV $68, large junk pile $208.

Why San Diegans rent so much storage

Three local reasons, and they compound.

No basements. Nothing here is built with one. If your house does not have a garage - and a great deal of the beach, North Park, Hillcrest and downtown housing stock does not - there is no overflow space at all. A storage unit becomes the basement, at a monthly rate.

Military rotation. Households at Coronado, Point Loma, Miramar, Murphy Canyon and up toward Camp Pendleton store during deployments and between duty stations. Units get taken out for what is meant to be one tour and kept for five years.

The price of space. Downsizing from a house to a condo in this market leaves furniture with nowhere to go, and the unit is the compromise. Facilities cluster along Miramar Road, through Kearny Mesa and out into Santee, El Cajon and the North County corridor, which is exactly where people stop on the way out of town.

Then the monthly charge quietly exceeds the resale value of everything inside within about a year.

Facility access is the whole logistics problem

A storage cleanout is not like a house. The building has rules, and they decide what is possible.

• Gate hours. Most facilities have access hours that are narrower than the office hours. Book the cleanout inside them and tell us the window.
• Gate code or escort. The crew needs a code, or you need to be there, or the office needs to authorize entry. Sort this out the day before.
• Drive-up versus interior. A drive-up roll-up door is the easy version - the truck backs to the door. An interior unit means a corridor, a freight elevator and facility carts, and it takes longer.
• Elevator and cart availability. Multi-story facilities have a limited number of both, and on a Saturday in summer everyone is using them.
• Insurance requirements. Some facilities ask vendors for a certificate of insurance before they will let a truck in. Ask us and we will send one.

The billing clock is the reason to move fast

Storage is billed by the month and it does not prorate in your favor. A unit emptied on the 2nd is a month you paid for; a unit emptied on the 28th is the same money.

So the sequence that saves the most is: decide, book the cleanout for a date before your billing date, empty it, then close the account with the office in person and get written confirmation. Not the other way around.

People lose entire extra months to a Saturday that did not work out, which is most of the argument for a scheduled crew over a borrowed truck and a friend.

Sort before, not during

The most expensive way to do this is to open the door and start deciding.

Go once, on your own, with a plan. Three categories only:

• Keep. Move it to one side. Be strict - if you have not opened the box in the years it has been here, the box is the answer.
• Sell or donate. Tools, solid wood and mid-century furniture, bicycles and sports gear all move here. Give it one week with a hard deadline.
• Go. Everything else, which is what gets priced.

And check the paperwork boxes before the crew arrives. Storage units are where people put file boxes, and that is where deeds, titles and tax records live. A box of books is $45 to remove and the box next to it may be the important one.

What tends to be in a San Diego unit

The inventory is fairly consistent, and so is what it prices at:

• The furniture that did not fit the condo. Sofa $126, dresser $126, dining table $103 or $163, bookshelf $72.
• A bedroom set. Mattress and box spring set $143, bed frame $68, nightstand $57.
• Boxes, many boxes. Small pile $82, medium $129, large $208, or by bag - 10 bags $132, 20 bags $259.
• Outdoor gear. Bicycles $37 each, camping bins, a portable basketball hoop $115.
• The appliance nobody wanted to scrap. Mini fridge $115, washer $133.
• Old electronics. TV $62 to $73 by size, monitor $58, box of electronics $77.

Note what is not welcome in a unit or on our truck: paint, solvents, propane and other household hazardous waste. Most facilities prohibit storing it, and it goes through the county's program regardless.

Priced examples

Miramar Road 5x10, kept through a deployment. Three-eighths truck $338, drive-up unit, done in under an hour.

Kearny Mesa 10x10, one-bedroom's worth. Three-quarter truck $587. Itemized instead: sofa $126 + mattress and box spring set $143 + dresser $126 + dining table $103 + large junk pile $208 = $706. The truck tier wins.

Santee 10x15, house contents after a downsize. Full truck $732.

Oceanside 5x5, the last of it. Quarter truck $241, or per item if it is only a few boxes and a bike: large junk pile $208 + bicycle $37 = $245.

Every total above is the literal sum of published prices.

Lien and auction units

If you bought a unit at auction, the clock is tighter than a normal cleanout - facilities generally require the unit cleared and broom-swept within a short window, and you are on the hook if it is not.

Same pricing, but two practical notes. Sort what you are keeping off-site if you can, because sorting inside the facility burns your access hours. And expect a genuine mix - furniture, bags, electronics, the occasional appliance - so a truck tier is usually the right buy rather than an item list.

For facility managers doing this routinely: prices are published, so a cleanout can be approved at a known number before anyone cuts a lock.

Frequently asked questions