Quick answer: Ontrack Moving® runs storage warehouses in Hayward, California and Peoria, Arizona, and as of August 2026 the prohibited list is the same at both, for our household storage service: no gasoline, propane, or any fuel, no aerosols, paint, or chemicals, no ammunition or fireworks, no perishable food, no plants, and nothing alive, damp, or leaking.
The banned list is the easy part. The expensive mistakes are legal: candles, vinyl records, photographs, electronics, and lithium batteries riding out a Phoenix summer in a sealed metal container. Desert heat in Phoenix can exceed 115°F in summer; the inside of a closed steel box in direct sun runs well hotter than that.
What belongs in storage and how it is stored: see our managed vault storage page. For how many vaults your home actually needs, the math lives in our 26-foot truck and vault capacity guide.
TL;DR (30-Second Summary)
- Keep out of Ontrack household storage: fuel, propane (even "empty"), aerosols, paint and chemicals, ammunition, fireworks, perishable food, plants, animals.
- Legal but a bad idea in an unconditioned container: candles, vinyl, photos, electronics, lithium batteries, wine, leather, pressboard furniture, pianos.
- The desert multiplier: Desert heat in Phoenix, which can exceed 115°F in summer, pushes a closed metal box far past what wax, adhesives, and batteries tolerate.
- The moisture rule: damp items can develop mildew. Defrost, drain, and dry before load day.
- Keep with you: passports, deeds, jewelry, cash, medications, sole-copy hard drives. Check the liability terms in the signed storage agreement.
- Vehicles: not inside Ontrack household vaults. Ontrack’s Hayward yard stores cars, boats, trailers, and RVs outdoors.
What Items Does Ontrack Prohibit in Household Storage?
These are restrictions for Ontrack household storage. Fire safety, leaks, pests and the needs of other stored belongings matter. Check the written acceptance rules before using any warehouse, self-storage unit or portable container.
- Fuel and flammables. Gasoline, kerosene, diesel, lighter fluid, camp fuel. Drain gas-powered tools (mowers, trimmers, generators) before they load. The vapor is the hazard, not just the liquid.
- Propane tanks, including "empty" ones. A tank that reads empty still holds residual gas. Exchange it at a retailer or leave it with the barbecue. Ontrack also declines camp-stove canisters and CO2 cylinders.
- Aerosol cans. Any of them: paint, hairspray, cooking spray, cleaning products. Pressurized cans burst in heat, and a storage box is the definition of unattended heat.
- Paint, thinner, and chemicals. Paint cans, solvents, pool chlorine, fertilizer, pesticides, opened cleaning chemicals. Check the accepted items and fees at your local household hazardous waste program before taking materials there.
- Ammunition and fireworks. Not accepted in Ontrack household storage.
- Perishable food, and realistically all food. One forgotten pantry box is an invitation to rodents addressed to the entire warehouse. Ontrack declines food; canned goods also swell and burst in heat.
- Plants. They die in the dark, and the soil carries insects into a clean building. Some states also restrict moving soil across their lines.
- Animals and anything alive. This should not need to be on a list. Every operator will tell you it does.
- People. Living or sleeping in a storage unit is not permitted at self-storage facilities. Ontrack storage is for belongings, not living accommodation.
Where do the banned items go instead? Use them up, hand them to a neighbor, or take them to a household hazardous waste drop-off. For furniture and junk that is not worth storing at all, a single-item junk haul is usually cheaper than twelve months of storing something you were never going to take back out. Our room-by-room packing guide covers the same non-allowables from the moving-truck side, for items to separate before the crew loads.
Legal, Allowed, and Still a Bad Idea: The Heat-Sensitive List
Even when a facility accepts these items, heat can damage them. Check the item’s storage requirements before choosing an unconditioned container in the desert. These are the risks to consider:
| Item | Storage concerns |
| Candles, crayons, lipstick | Wax can soften, lose its shape and mark nearby items. |
| Vinyl records | Heat can warp records. |
| Photographs and film | Heat and moisture can damage prints and negatives. Keep irreplaceable originals in suitable conditions. |
| Electronics and TVs | Follow the manufacturer’s storage temperature and humidity limits. |
| Lithium batteries | Follow the manufacturer’s storage instructions and check the facility’s battery restrictions. |
| Wine | Heat can spoil wine. Choose storage intended for it. |
| Leather and upholstery | Heat, dryness and trapped moisture can damage these materials. |
| Pressboard and veneer furniture | Heat and moisture can affect joints and finishes. Solid wood also needs suitable storage conditions. |
| Pianos and instruments | Soundboards, glue joints, and tuning react to heat and dryness. A piano is exactly the item that earns climate control. See piano moving. |
| Artwork on canvas | Temperature and humidity changes can affect the canvas and painted surface. Choose packing and storage suited to the work. |
A Climate-Controlled Vault vs a Metal Container in the Sun
Our Peoria, Arizona warehouse is climate controlled. Our Hayward, California warehouse is not; check any specific environmental needs before booking storage there. Hayward has 22-foot ceilings and a secure, high-fence vehicle yard on Clawiter Road for cars, boats, trailers and RVs.
Inside both buildings, belongings ride in 7x7x5 wood vaults, and the material choice is deliberate: wood allows some moisture exchange, but belongings still need to be dry before storage. Items go in blanket-wrapped, logged on an inventory manifest, and come back out by vault number. A portable metal container has a different loading and storage arrangement, and for a short window in a mild climate with a non-sensitive load, it can still be fine. For a Phoenix summer, or for anything on the heat-sensitive list, it is the wrong box. Ontrack Moving covers the details, and current vault rates, on the storage page, and our Arizona heat protocol guide explains how the same thinking applies to the truck ride itself.
Final charges will be based on actual labor time, materials used, access conditions, scope changes, waiting time, and any additional services requested or required to complete the move.
The Residual-Moisture Rule
Mildew does not need much. It needs closed, dark, damp, and time. A storage vault supplies closed and dark; do not supply the other two. The usual offenders are things that seem dry:
Dry It Before You Store It
- Refrigerators and freezers: defrost 24 to 48 hours ahead, towel out the interior, and store with doors propped open.
- Washing machines: drain the hoses and run the drum dry; trapped water can contribute to dampness and mildew.
- Patio cushions and outdoor fabric: fully sun-dried before wrapping. "Mostly dry" is the mistake.
- Coolers, kayaks, garden hoses: emptied, drained, and left open to air a day before load day.
- Recently cleaned carpets and rugs: a steam-cleaned rug needs days to dry through the pad, not hours.
Allowed, But Keep It With You Anyway
The last category is not about facility rules. It is about what storage liability actually is. Stored belongings are subject to the signed storage agreement. Where basic $0.60 per pound per article liability applies, a 5-pound item has a $3.00 limit. Additional protection may be purchased through a third-party provider, subject to its terms; Ontrack does not sell insurance or valuation. Keep these items with you:
- Passports, birth certificates, deeds, titles, and tax records
- Jewelry, heirlooms, and cash
- Medications, prescriptions, and medical devices
- Hard drives, backup drives, and photo archives that exist in one copy
- Anything whose loss no dollar figure would fix
From the Ontrack Moving® Warehouse Floor
A pre-storage walkthrough helps identify items to separate before packing. Before load day, walk your garage and kitchen with three piles in mind: hazardous (dispose properly), heat-sensitive or irreplaceable (rides with you or goes climate-controlled), and everything else (vault it). Crews check for the obvious items at pickup, propane tanks and gas cans get caught at the door, but the pantry box taped shut in June is the one that finds us in August. Sort it once, at home, with the lights on.
