We love customers, especially those we get to see regularly—these days from a safe distance! The folks who stop by most often are owners or employees of essential businesses. They roll up the orange doors of their units to grab supplies and go.

With almost all of our locations open around the country, we serve as a warehouse for these business customers – from an electrician in Colorado Springs to an auto supply vendor in California – who count on us to help them serve their communities. They can drive in and out without having to interact with anyone on site using their personal code to enter.

“Closing our doors during this time of uncertainty would be difficult for so many businesses,”; said Ricardo Orozco, a location manager in Southern California.

Orozco waves from a distance to these regular visitors, including longtime customer Abe Chavira, who drives past the front lobby in his white company van on his way to his storage unit.

For nearly 20 years Chavira’s company, PetroSpecs, Inc. has rented a Public Storage unit in Southern California. They store auto supply products sold to independent repair shops and cities maintaining fleets of government cars such as those used by police, said Chavira, a company salesman.

“I don’t have enough room in my garage to keep samples of the equipment, let alone keep products. I have heavy-duty shelving in my unit, it’s like a shop, for my products,”; he said.

Before the pandemic, Chavira would go to his unit daily, sometimes even twice a day, to restock on products.

While his frequent visits to the storage unit have slowed, Chavira is comforted knowing someone is onsite at the facility daily, and having regular access is still vital.

“I may go to my unit and pick up an item, and sometimes it could be a couple of times a day,”; he said. “Sometimes you’ll have a city call and say ‘I need a couple of cases of a product,’ which isn’t part of my regular route.”;

Our units also offer storage solutions to small business owners like Travis Newcomer of 1 Call Electric, based in Colorado Springs.

For more than five years the electrician has rented various unit sizes, depending on his business needs at the time, which have included a unit for his equipment with space for his oversized truck.

“It wasn’t easy to find parking anywhere,”; and the unit was a simple solution to be able to park the truck when it wasn’t in use, he said.

Newcomer said the reason he got a unit was because there wasn’t space at home.

“I’m frequently visiting,”; he said.

And Public Storage will always be there for Newcomer and all of our other valued customers providing the storage, security and service necessary so they can serve their communities.