Reducing the Storage Crunch

Each summer, hundreds of students engage in their perennial nomadic migration back to their homes, packing with them every earthly possession that could be of even tangential use during that summer—everything, that is, that doesn’t go into storage. Currently, Harvard students who live more than 100 miles away are allowed to leave six boxes of belongings and some oversized furniture items in the basement of their Houses during the summer for retrieval at the start of the next term. Each year, they are reminded that the items are not insured by the College, and that they are storing at their own risk. Yet so many students have taken advantage of this option that the surplus items have spilled out of predetermined storage areas into hallways and other forbidden areas, earning the College a citation from the Cambridge Fire Department.

As a result, administrators in the FAS Office of Physical Resources have begun brainstorming ways to reduce the number of items left in Harvard’s basements during the summer. According to Zachary M. Gingo ’98, the proposed changes include charging students per box of storage, as is the policy at Dartmouth, or increasing the distance away a student must live before being eligible to store from 100 miles to 200 miles. While these changes would undoubtedly reduce the number of boxes students store, there are vastly more preferable options that can be reached with some creativity on the part of administrators.

Charging students for leaving their items in an uninsured basement seems unfair at best and greedy at worst. There would be no actual improvement in storage service, and items would be just as susceptible to theft as they are now. The proposal to increase the eligibility from 100 miles to 200 miles is similarly unfair. Driving one’s belongings to a nearby suburb in two trips during the day is very different from having to make the four-hour trip all the way to New York or having to bear the expense of hiring a van. This is especially a problem for students who would be responsible for lugging large furniture items across many states each year.

A better approach would be for the College to contract out with a professional storage company that could offer secure, insured, off-site storage for a subsidized rate that students could pay per box. This would allow students who are concerned about the perilous nature of Harvard storage to leverage the bulk purchasing power of the College to get a lower price on high quality storage, an option that would surely be exercised by those students who are often too busy with final exams and papers to plan ahead for their summer storage. This measure would undoubtedly alleviate the storage crunch, and with students paying a portion, it would relieve the costs that the College has had to pay in past years when it has had to call in emergency storage trucks because the Houses were overflowing with boxes. Another way to reduce the storage crunch is to begin enforcing the six box limit. Because of lax enforcement, some students store many more boxes than allotted, leaving no room for those who follow the guidelines. The College must enforce this limit much more diligently, perhaps by subcontracting responsibility for cataloging boxes.

By offering a low-cost, insured option for boxes and by strictly enforcing the box limit, there will be room for the most difficult item: furniture. The College should not put any additional regulations on the storage of furniture, which creates the biggest logistical headache for students. Even if the number of boxes per student needs to be reduced in order to accommodate the furniture, the College should not institute any change that would put additional strain on students that would come from having to transport unwieldy futons each year. By creating more attractive storage options rather than restricting those that currently exist, summer storage can become more safe, economical and efficient.