With summer break approaching, some University students are facing the problem of what to do with the belongings they cannot take home with them.

University Housing does not offer summer storage and encourages students to look for self-storage off campus, said Chelsea Hamilton, senior assistant director for communications and marketing for University Housing, in an email.

“This also includes bikes,” Hamilton said. “Bikes left on campus will not be here when students return in the fall. Students need to either take their bike home, donate it or have another plan for self-storage off campus.”

One storage option available for items such as bikes is Collegeboxes.

Amber Doherty, customer service employee at Collegeboxes, said in an email Collegeboxes offers services in summer storage and shipping for both domestic and international, as well as services in study abroad storage and shipping, school shipping services and anytime shipping.

“With our service, we provide in-room pick up, storage over the summer (or shipping home) and delivery back to campus in the fall,” she said. “Students can store any amount of items with us; there is no minimum or maximum number of items we can store.”

Doherty said students store a wide range of items that may be difficult to transport if they live far from campus.

“Many students attend school far from home and bringing items back and forth just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Bringing things home like refrigerators, bicycles and futons just sometimes is not possible when you need to take a plane to get home.”

Storage Squad is another company that many University students choose for summer storage. The company charges $37 for box storage, while Collegeboxes charges $45.

Students looking for local small business storage options have many to choose from as well.

Jill Krueger, manager at Own Your Own Storage in Urbana, said the company has about 50 student customers during the summer months.

“Students rent over the summer because they don’t want to take their belongings home,” Krueger said. “Mom and dad don’t want to bring their kids’ belongings home.”

Krueger said student customers are often international students or students from distant places who have a long way to travel over the summer months and do not want to worry about transporting their items.

“We do have some international students, and then I have kids that probably live in California or New York or whatever, so they just do not want to take their stuff all the way home,” she said.

Krueger said Own Your Own Storage currently has small storage spaces available at student discounts. A 6-foot-by-7-foot storage unit costs $210 for students.

“We don’t charge any deposits,” Krueger said. “We just ask that they pay for the summer in full when they check in.”

Alina Yang, sophomore in LAS, said she used Storage Squad last summer for storage.

“I chose Storage Squad because it provides free pick-up and delivery service,” Yang said in an email. “This was very convenient for me at that time because I didn’t have a car for transportation.”

Yang said she stored things like clothes, furniture, kitchenware, bedding and books. Finding summer storage was not stressful for her because her friend recommended Storage Squad, which made Yang’s decision on storage locations easier.

Yang needed to use summer storage because there was a large gap between her move-out date for her dorm and her move-in date for her new apartment

“The move-in date was in August but the move-out date was in May, and I was out of town during the whole summer,” she said.

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