Karen Wilson was out of the country at her mother’s funeral when irreplaceable family heirlooms were stolen from her storage unit in Federal Way.

She also lost snowboards, backpacking gear and more.

Wilson isn’t alone. Community member Keith Wade also had a hurtful loss, and expressed frustration about it at the Federal Way City Council meeting on Oct. 15. Some of his belongings had been stolen in March out of the storage unit he rented at the LifeStorage/ExtraSpace facility, 33620 21st Ave. SW in Federal Way. The location changed ownership at the end of 2023 and is now called LifeStorage.

“Like every other customer, I did not store my things there because I wanted to. For almost a year, I was homeless. I had no choice,” Wade told the council. “I was victimized there. Not all of my belongings were taken, but they did take my father’s ashes.”

Wade called for the closure of the storage facility at the council meeting. However, Federal Way police report the issue isn’t contained to that one location but is an issue throughout the city, and that this facility is just on example of the challenges of deterring theft.

Police reports have been filed for 27 other burglary incidents at LifeStorage since January, not including those filed by Wade and Wilson.

Bryan Ailor, manager at LifeStorage, stated that with 1,400 units, it would be very costly to have cameras covering every unit. Instead, they have cameras at the entrances to buildings.

Footage also cannot be provided directly to customers, but can be provided to police. Victims often don’t know an exact time or date of a theft because they only discover it when they access the unit, meaning that narrowing down the theft would require watching months of video.

The storage facility has a variety of security features including visual checks, cameras set off by motion sensor and locks that cannot be cut with bolt cutters. Customers only have access to the building that their unit is in, and a notification pops up on the storage facility’s monitoring system with the customer’s name whenever their unique code is entered.

With that protection, Ailor said that even when you do everything right, theft can still happen.

“A customer can have a lock on there and it could be well lit. All your securities features are good. But if somebody rents a storage unit and has bad intentions, they’re going to be able to get in … There’s kind of no avoiding it,” Ailor said, adding that “they’re not safes or vaults.”

As someone who has been in the storage business for over a decade at a variety of storage facilities, Ailor said they all have this problem.

Wade expressed to the Mirror in an interview that it was this lack of empathy or accountability that really bothered him the most when his storage unit was burglarized.

The attitude that there’s nothing to be done to deter burglaries like this made Wade suspicious, and at the very least, he said “by having no cameras on the doors, they are participating.”

Ailor told the Mirror that people often accuse staff of being involved in burglaries, but that they are just angry and “looking for someone to blame.”

Burglaries often involve someone renting a unit as an actual customer, then using that code and access to get into the storage. Burglars sometimes drill through a lock or try to enter an adjacent unit through the wall or ceiling. At least one individual was arrested and evicted from the storage facility this year for just this reason, and it’s something that Ailor said they watch for.

Other losses this year have included everything from a tackle box and a juicer to laptops and guns, according to Federal Way police reports. Comic books and video games will also stolen, and for one incident, the rarity of the items helped catch the perpetrator.

Having detailed knowledge of the items in one customer’s unit helped Federal Way police catch one storage unit burglar after they caught her trying to sell unique comic books that they could trace directly to the theft.

Most units were accessed by drilling out the lock and replacing it with another so that it doesn’t catch the attention of management — until that person comes by and their key doesn’t work. Wade said when he told staff that his key didn’t fit, they first suggested that he had bent his key or caused the issue himself.

In Wilson’s case, her storage unit was found unsecured by staff. When she went to the unit, she found “family photos scattered on the floor” and other valuable belongings missing.

For those who are using storage units in Federal Way, common advice is to maintain a detailed inventory so items can be replaced if they are stolen and to consider adding extra security measures to the items inside like heavy chains, alarms or locks in case someone does get in.