Storing Your Things During a Long Absence

Plenty of students in Provo leave for a considerable stretch and come back: a mission, a semester abroad, an internship in another state, or a year out. Everything you own has to sit somewhere in the meantime.

Short storage and long storage are genuinely different problems, and what works for a summer does not work for two years.

Just-In-Time Moving works throughout Provo and Utah County. We are licensed in Utah and carry general liability insurance.

Decide what is worth keeping at all

Start here, because storage is priced by volume and time, and the arithmetic changes completely over a long absence.

Something worth eighty dollars is not worth storing for two years. Clothing you will have outgrown in taste or size by the time you return is not worth storing either. Textbooks are almost never worth it.

Keep what is genuinely irreplaceable, genuinely expensive, or genuinely certain to be used again. Sell or give away the rest, which is easier at term end when there are buyers.

Long storage has real risks

Heat. A standard unit is unheated and uncooled. Over Utah summers, candles deform, vinyl records warp, adhesives fail, electronics degrade and anything battery-powered can leak.

Damp and pests. Anything stored even slightly damp will not be fine in a year. Fabric, especially, must go in clean and dry.

Forgetting. The commonest failure is simply losing track. Keep an inventory and a photograph of the loaded unit, somewhere that survives a new phone.

Pack differently for the long term

Sealed plastic containers rather than cardboard, which sags and attracts pests over time. Clothing and bedding washed, fully dry, in sealed containers.

Remove every battery from every device. This is the single most common cause of ruined electronics in storage.

Nothing liquid, nothing perishable, nothing scented.

Sort out who is responsible

If a family member is paying or holding the unit, agree it explicitly, including what happens if payment lapses. Units are sold off for non-payment, and it happens to people who are unreachable.

Ask whether your belongings are covered. Storage facilities generally cover their building, not your contents, and their own insurance offer is separate. A parent's homeowners policy may extend to a dependent student's stored goods, and it is worth one call to find out rather than assuming either way.

Getting it there

We book short hourly jobs for loading a unit, and can work to whatever instructions have been agreed if you have already left.

Call (435) 862-3080 or email office@movingjustintime.com.