Brad Fuller of Graham was casting about for a safe place to stow his household possessions last fall as he and his family prepared to move to a new home in another part of Alamance County.
The 32-year-old substitute teacher ultimately found what he was seeking at 1579 Bakatsias Lane – an interstate service road that skirts the main campus of Alamance Community College. Since 2019, a company called 10 Federal has operated an automated self-storage center at this location, and Fuller, who had previously used this company’s services, felt he could trust the facility to safeguard his property.
Fuller remained complacent about the center’s integrity as Tropical Storm Chantal passed through in early July and deluged the area in about 10 inches of rain. It wasn’t until about two weeks later, however, that he had the first inkling of doubt about the self-storage facility when another of 10 Federal’s clients looped him in to the extensive flooding that had occurred along Bakatsias Lane.
Fuller conceded that things were pretty far gone by the time he reached the grounds of the self-storage center in response to this belated heads-up.
“They already had demo crews out there cleaning units out,” he said. “Everybody lost everything…I had been in the process of moving, and so all my personal belongings were in my unit. I lost furniture, appliances –pretty much everything you would need to move from one house to another…All I could do was cry and walk off. Everything in there was gone.”
Stored-up frustrations
Fuller isn’t the only one who was moved by the devastation that Chantal had wrought on Bakatsias Lane.
By the time day broke on the morning after the storm, water had inundated just about every corner of 10 Federal’s facility, leaving few, if any, of the company’s clients untouched by the results. As the scale of the disaster sunk in, some of these clients began blaming the storage company itself for their collective misfortune. Nor does their anger seem to have abated with the retreat of the floodwaters.
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One of the more vocal critics of 10 Federal’s disaster response has been Heather Sloan, a tailoring and alterations professional who lives on the outskirts of Haw River’s town limits.
About two months before the tropical storm, Sloan rented a pair of five-foot-by-ten-foot stalls at the Bakatsias Lane facility. She went on to fill these two units with supplies and equipment for her home business – and she used the remaining space for furniture, appliances, and other household items that she needed to stash before renovating her home along Trollingwood Road.
Sloan said that her first instinct in the aftermath of the storm was to salvage whatever she could from her storage units. She nevertheless insists that the company hindered these efforts with access restrictions that conspicuously excluded the restoration contractors who were on site to tend to 10 Federal’s own property.
“That’s what really jacked everybody,” she went on to elaborate in a conversation earlier this week. “They wouldn’t let us in outside the hours of 8 and 4…They wouldn’t let us in at night or on weekends. Some people weren’t let in until last Thursday, and they had only two days to clear out…And then there were the looters.”
Sloan recalled that one unauthorized visitor even made off with a wagon that she had brought in to recover some of the heavier items from her lockers. Meanwhile, she said that other people had valuables stolen out of their stalls due to vulnerabilities caused by the storm.
In response to an inquiry from The Alamance News, 10 Federal’s “storm support” staff passed along a statement that denied any knowledge of confirmed looting from the facility. As to the complaints about limited access, the company pointed to a number of possible hazards that it had to address after the storm, including “electrical risks, potential unknown structural instability, and contamination concerns.”
“Out of an abundance of caution, we secured the property, restricted access, and locked down impacted units to protect tenant belongings and prevent further harm,” an unidentified member of the storm support staff added on Wednesday. “In coordination with licensed remediation professionals, we conducted emergency assessments to ensure conditions were safe before allowing re-entry…Once the site was cleared and deemed safe, we began offering scheduled access appointments and waived rent for all affected tenants.”
Best-laid plans…
In the end, Sloan managed to get to her storage units to rescue whatever had survived the wrath of Chantal. She insists that the number of salvageable items would’ve been higher if not for the company’s restrictions on access, which left her possessions to marinate in standing water and the hothouse conditions that prevailed in the absence of climate control.
Sloan added that she has spent the past month photographing and documenting the items she couldn’t retrieve. Among those she deemed past saving are several commercial sewing machines, antique furniture, vintage firearms, period clothing, tax records and other boxed documents, and hundreds of books that include several texts she was using to home school her autistic son. All told, she believes that her losses amount to something in the neighborhood of $200,000.
Fuller has, likewise, been taking stock of the financial toll from the tropical storm. In his case, the losses include beds and other pieces of furniture, various appliances, children’s toys, and most of this family’s wardrobe.
The substitute teacher recalled that he initially thought he could get some compensation for these items under a “protection plan” that he purchased when he rented his storage unit from 10 Federal.
Fuller recalled that he had been subtly steered toward this policy when he used the company’s online system to pay for his rental. During this automated process, Fuller said he was presented with a Hobson’s choice to either purchase the protection plan from 10 Federal or submit documentation that his items were covered by homeowner’s insurance. He chose the first option and ponyed up the extra $15 a month for the company’s “protection,” which he figured would put him in good stead in the event of a disaster.
Fuller was ultimately disabused of this notion when he spoke with a customer service agent about the protection plan in the wake of the storm.
She said the insurance doesn’t cover any of this,” he recalled. “So, I asked what the protection plan is for. She just said it doesn’t cover any of this.”
The absence of coverage for flooding isn’t unique to 10 Federal’s protection plan, according to William Weatherspoon, Jr., a real estate lawyer who represents the self-storage company.
“It is a lot like homeowner’s insurance in that it doesn’t cover damage from rising waters or flooding,” Weatherspoon explained in an interview on Wednesday; “It’s in these disasters that people find out what they have coverage for and what they don’t. 10 Federal didn’t have flooding insurance [for its own property at Bakatsias Lane] and the protection plan had an addendum that specifically excluded flooding.”
Sloan is emphatic, however, that the company’s automated payment process never gave her and other clients the opportunity to scrutinize the details of the company’s protection plan.
“When you sign up using the app, it tells you that you have to get the protection plan,” she added as she recalled her own experience using a smart phone to book the rental. “But it doesn’t tell you what the protection plan is for. I couldn’t click on it to bring up the details, and it didn’t let me pay without the protection plan.
Sloan, like Fuller, contends that the protection plan was more or less foisted on her when she paid for her storage units. This characterization is nevertheless challenged by the company’s storm support staff, which asserts that 10 Federal follows industry standards in its protection plan.
“Tenants rent storage units at their own risk and assume responsibility for the contents they choose to store,” the storm support staff went on to explain. “This is standard language across the self-storage industry…These terms are prominently presented during the online rental process, and tenants are required to acknowledge and agree to them before completing their rental. All lease documentation, including the protection plan, is also automatically emailed to the customer immediately upon move-in.”
A failure to communicate?
According to 10 Federal’s storm support staff, the company has made a concerted effort to keep its clients up to date in the aftermath of the storm.
“From the outset, we made multiple efforts to notify and communicate with affected tenants,” the staff added in its statement to The Alamance News. “This included email updates, phone calls, messages through our customer portal, and—for customers we could not reach—certified letters outlining the recovery process. These communications detailed safety protocols, remediation steps, and available support resources.”
The company’s statement goes on to catalog some of 10 Federal’s efforts on behalf of its storm-harried clients. Among other things, the company notes that it has absorbed disposal costs for its tenants, paused rental charges at affected sites, and offered relocation assistance to clients who agree to move their stuff to other 10 Federal facilities. The company has also extended two months of rent-free storage to these same clients.
“Like many of our tenants, we did not have flood insurance for this property, as it is located outside the 100-year floodplain,” the statement continues. “Given the flood was an uncovered insurance peril, 10 Federal, as a firm, is sustaining and covering what is estimated to be in excess of $1 million in remediation, recovery, and tenant support expenses.”
The company’s assurances of customer support have nevertheless been cold comfort to some of its more disillusioned clients.
Fuller, for one, notes that much of his aggravation with 10 Federal stems from the trouble he has had wresting information and assistance from the company’s representatives. He added that these difficulties have sent him down other avenues in search of help.
Fuller recalled that, in recent weeks, he has been on the phone with officials from FEMA, the North Carolina Department of Justice, and the office of the state insurance commissioner. At one point, he was even advised to seek a loan from the Small Business Administration on the rather flimsy pretext that a self-storage center is a kind of small business. His application to the SBA has since been denied.
Fuller acknowledged that he was able to get some satisfaction from an official with the NCDOJ, who joined him for a three-way call with one of 10 Federal’s customer service agents.
“She told the guy that ‘if these people are purchasing a protection plan, they’re stuff is supposed to be covered,’” Fuller recounted. “The guy pretty much gave up at that point, and he gave us a number for the insurance company they supposedly use…The guy from the insurance company called me back, and he said ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…we don’t insure any storage facilities in North Carolina.’”
Sloan conceded that she also spent many hours on hold with customer service in the days immediately after the storm. Since then, she has turned her attention to the facility’s other clients and currently manages a Facebook discussion group with a dozen participants.
Sloan said that she and other members of this group have been in touch with state and local officials about their financial losses. She added that Graham’s mayor Jennifer Talley has been especially supportive and has even proposed a special municipal fund to funnel private donations to the self-storage facility’s clients.
Sloan said that she eventually hopes to parlay this grassroots endeavor into a class action lawsuit against 10 Federal. She added that, at this point, she has yet to hear anything from 10 Federal that would win her back as a client.
“They’re offering a couple month’s rent for people who want to move their stuff to another facility,” she said by way of example of what the company has done for its clients. “But I’m not going to do that. I’m not even sure I’ll have enough of my stuff left.”
