November first is rough. You’re standing in your garage surrounded by fake spider webs and wondering how one holiday created this much chaos. That twelve-foot skeleton looked great scaring the neighbors, but now it’s taking up half your garage. The fog machine is dripping something suspicious. Plus you’ve got three bags of costumes that nobody’s throwing out but good luck fitting them in the closet.
Same thing happens every year. You promise yourself you’ll get organized. You convince yourself it’ll all fit somewhere. Next October comes and you’re dragging out smelly costumes from the basement, fighting with a ball of tangled lights, and half your decorations are trashed from bad storage. Here’s the thing about living in Massachusetts or New York. The weather goes from zero to sixty real quick. October’s great for Halloween, but by cleanup time it’s wet and cold. Store your stuff in the wrong place and you’ll be shopping for new decorations next year.
Why Halloween Cleanup Feels Like a Chore Every Year
Halloween’s gotten out of control. My neighbor dropped three hundred bucks on an animatronic werewolf. The guy down the street built an entire graveyard with fog and creepy sound effects. People go big now.
The problem? Nobody’s house has room for all this. Your garage has the car, the mower, bikes, and boxes of random stuff you might need someday. The basement’s packed with Christmas decorations, camping gear, and moving boxes you never opened. And the attic? Yeah right. Nobody wants to haul plastic bins up there.
Self storage makes sense when you think about it. Get a small unit, pack your Halloween stuff right, and forget about it until next year. No more playing Tetris in the garage. No more stuffing things in corners where they’ll get wrecked.
What Belongs in Post-Halloween Storage?
Start with the obvious. Those tombstones, the skeleton army, all those orange lights. But there’s way more than just the yard decorations. What about those special Halloween plates you bought? The themed tablecloth? That candy bowl that plays spooky sounds when someone reaches in?
Costumes are the worst. Kids grow out of them but nobody wants to toss a perfectly good dinosaur suit. Adults buy something for the office party and then it sits in a bag for a year. Before you know it, you’ve got a whole collection taking up space. Then there’s the leftover candy you bought on sale November first. The craft supplies for next year. The extra fog juice. It adds up quick.
Living near Pittsfield, Adams, Schenectady, or Glens Falls? Greylock Storage has space for all of it.
Why Self Storage Is a Smarter Option Than Just Using Your Garage or Basement
Your garage gets hot as hell in summer and freezing in winter. That plastic cauldron you bought? It’ll be warped by next Halloween. Those electronic decorations with the sound effects? Good luck getting them to work after they sit through humidity all year.
Basements are worse. I learned this the hard way when I pulled out a bin of costumes that smelled like wet dog. Even if your basement seems dry, it’s not. Trust me. One rainy spring and everything down there gets that musty smell that never goes away.
Temperature-controlled units keep your stuff in the same condition you packed it. No moisture. No extreme temps. No mice deciding your witch hat makes a great nest.
How to Pack Halloween Decorations the Right Way for Long-Term Storage
Forget cardboard boxes. They fall apart, mice love them, and you can’t see what’s inside. Get clear plastic bins. Yeah, they cost more upfront but they’ll save your decorations.
Break out the bubble wrap for anything glass or ceramic. Take five extra minutes to wrap those string lights around something so they don’t turn into a mess. And here’s a pro tip. Don’t just write “Halloween” on every bin. Write what’s actually in there. “Yard signs and stakes” beats “Halloween stuff” when you’re looking for something specific next year.
Want more ideas? Check out this guide to smart packing for storage.
When Portable Storage Makes More Sense
Sometimes you don’t want to deal with driving back and forth to a storage facility. Maybe you’re cleaning out the whole garage. Maybe you’re moving. That’s when portable storage rocks.
We drop off a Go Mini container. You load it whenever you want. Take a week if you need to. When you’re done, we pick it up and store it at our secure facility. Next Halloween, we bring it back. Simple as that. Check out the portable storage options if you want to skip the hassle.
Finding the Right Storage Size for Seasonal Items
Figuring out what size unit you need depends on what you’re storing. Just a few bins of Halloween decorations? A 5×5 works great. That’s about the size of a hall closet. But if you’re the house that goes all out with inflatables, animatronics, and enough lights to see from space, you’ll need more room.
Storing Halloween plus Christmas decorations? Go with a 5×10. Add in Easter, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving stuff and you’re looking at a 10×10 or bigger. Some people even use storage year-round for patio furniture and winter gear.
All four Greylock locations offer units from 5×5 all the way up to 10×30. Pick the size that actually works for what you’re storing. Too small and you’re cramming stuff in. Too big and you’re wasting money.
Wrapping Up the Holiday with Less Stress
Halloween should end with leftover candy and good memories, not a week of fighting with tangled lights and trying to squeeze bins into spaces where they don’t fit. Get your storage game figured out now and next October will be way easier.
Stop reshuffling the same bins every year. Greylock’s storage locations in Pittsfield, Adams, Schenectady, and Glens Falls have room for your Halloween haul. Do yourself a favor and get it sorted before the holidays really kick in.
