Texas Self Storage

From the beginning, we had misgivings about doing business with this company; but chose it because the location is centric (e.g. it is off the freeway) and it was the weekend. We were pressed for time and had to make do. I reserved my unit online with the three month special at 50% off. When we arrived in person it turns out that price in particular was for an upstairs unit according to Woody, the manager. Their online system did not specify this and the emailed confirmation mentioned nothing about this. The manager, who lives onsite with his Longhorn-​ish orange vehicle from Colorado, stated that the email did indeed specify that the special was for an upstairs unit and proceeded to show me the confirmation on his system. I showed him my email that made no mention of this. Since I did not want an upstairs unit, I settled for a downstairs unit at 50% for one month, instead of three months. Nevertheless, I did not want to carry on as I wanted to unload my furniture and move on.
When it came time to sign the lease, there are about as many stipulations as a one would find for an apartment or house, which was unusual to me. Whether this is state law or company policy is unclear, but I have never dealt with this before at a storage company. The manager said that he would run the card for the prorated rent for January and on February 1^st the rent was due. TSS does not bill according to one’s move-​in date, but on the first of every month. He ran the card for February’s rent and said that it was a «mistake» and if we wanted a refund that it would have to be done in writing and that the company only issues checks for refunds. What I observed was that if it really was a mistake TSS would have had to reprint the receipt because it would only indicate January’s rent. However, the receipt included February’s rent and he billed me the correct amount. I let it go because I figured that we would need a few days in February to resolve our situation and the rent would have been due nevertheless.
Before we began moving our furniture to the unit, we asked the manager if there was a dolly in the premises and he said yes. When came back on Sunday to begin loading our furniture into the unit we looked all over the complex for the dolly and saw none. Since TSS is closed on Sunday, we could not inquire about this. If the manager would have informed us that the dolly was unavailable, I could have rented one from the moving company for a nominal fee. This delayed our moving time and caused us to be late in returning our truck.
One thing that I notice about TSS is that the complex collects a lot of water whenever it rains heavy (common Texas weather) and it is very muggy inside the unit itself, even in winter. They do have air conditioned units on the adjacent building over. This is a FYI though. The lighting inside and outside of the storage is inadequate. At night, that is especially creepy considering that part of town is residential and desolate.
I came yesterday to inform the manager that the unit was vacated and cleaned; and he turned it into an ordeal. He had me sign the declaration to vacate form, which he initially was reluctant to sign because he claimed to busy running reports. The thing is that this form requires a manager’s signature that states that the customer returned the unit clean, in good condition and free of locks. Eventually, he agreed to sign the vacate form and did it with a really nasty attitude, like he was on the war path or something. If Mr. Stiner is so dissatisfied with his job, he should find another line of work.
In retrospect, I should have rented with Public Storage, which is off the Gulf Freeway. I’m sure that I would have encountered more professional and agreeable personnel. At the end of the day this is not rocket science and a foul attitude is totally unnecessary when dealing with the public, that is if you do not have any biases or prejudices of your own.