Santa’s little helpers

Suspicious parents or those with few hiding places are using storage units to keep Christmas presents in so nosy children don’t sniff them out.

Dorset-headquartered Store & Secure has noticed the trend that has picked up in recent years.

Its storage facility in Poole is giving over rooms as ‘gift storage’ so parents can keep their presents secret.

Run by ‘storage sisters’ Lucy and Sophie Maidman, the business even allows online purchases to be delivered to its huge facility.

Parents often drop off acquired gifts and return in the days before Christmas to wrap them up.

Lucy said: “It is a new trend that we’ve noticed and it started because various retail businesses that take units have stock delivered and we always take them in.

“Some of them asked about storing presents and we said of course we could – and it’s grown in the last few years. We saw it right through Covid.

“Some presents are just too big for people to keep at home so they need somewhere safe to store them.

“We get bicycles, toy cars, trampolines, electric bikes and scooters, exercise equipment, TVs and gaming systems.

“Some parents leave wrapped presents at the units because they don’t trust their children – or their partners – not to find them at home and have a sneak peek.

“Most of those who do this are very organised people who often start buying their presents months before Christmas.

“In our units they can sort the gifts and wrap them at their leisure and pick them up before the big day.

“Often people think storage businesses are just for people moving home, but we have lots of retail businesses working from our units – selling online – and we provide serviced offices too.

“Many storage facilities are quite impersonal but we are friendly and go that extra mile for customers who keep coming up with new reasons to take storage.”

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