Take a cardboard box that has been lying in a garage and is months old. First comes smell, stale and heavy and wrong. Then the evidence follows. Pages curl at the edges. Pictures have glued themselves together. Records are now disfigured with vinyl. Rust has insinuated itself somewhere in the corner upon metal surfaces when no one was allowed to do it. None of it was brought about by any single dramatic event. Just time, heat, and unchecked humidity in their slow, dependable operations. The immediate solution to that problem is climate-controlled mini storage. Helpful hints!

Imagine a room in which there is no such thing as fluctuation in temperature and humidity. No summer air, with all its oppressive smell, of wet blanket. No winter snow stinging through the wall and your boxes. Your possessions are in stable, non-disturbing situations; the warehouse of a non-anxious, non-violent library where nothing decays more quickly than it ought.

Some products are more reliant on such stability than others. A good case at hand is wooden furniture. Wood is a dynamic substance – it swells when the moisture exists and shrinks when the air becomes dry. A dresser kept in a humid and unregulated unit will have sticking drawers and weaker joints with time. Climate control ensures equilibrium of the air and the furniture remains straight, functional and undamaged.

The same is the case with electronics. Spare monitors, old gaming systems, cameras, all of them contain sensitive circuitry that is given a chance by moisture. The corrosion process is slow and not easily visible and is only realized when a device cannot start several months later. Stable temperatures and humidity prevent that process within a constant temperature before it can grip.

This is the knowledge of collectors. Comic books, trading cards, old vinyl and old magazines are easily absorbed by moisture. To guess what happens is not a difficult task: the pages become wavy, they have mold spots, there is always a damp smell that cannot go away. Assisted environments maintain flat papers and colors intact – retain the object and its worth.

Dressing is more resistant to the extreme conditions as well. Clothes decompose due to the long-term heat. The leather cracks and becomes brittle. Clothes that have been kept over years under uncontrollable conditions might be seen to lose their shape, color, and even texture even without being touched. Climate controlled units are much slower in that degradation.

There is also a purely practical factor. It is no pleasant experience opening a metal storage unit in August, very hot, stuffy, and depressing. The climate-controlled facilities have comfortable indoor corridors and it is much easier to actually access and organize what one has stored.

There is still a false belief that these units cater to the needs of just a handful of collectors of rare antiques. Actually, the daily items, family photos, significant papers, clothes, instruments, etc. are the only beneficiaries. The process of preservation can be reduced to mere air and a constant surrounding.