Mira Chang in tears (Robert Miller)
These customers say they have been left high — and wet.
People renting lockers from two Manhattan Mini-Storage facilities in Chelsea not only discovered their belongings ruined by Hurricane Sandy — they may have to scramble to find their moldy possessions.
“The continued presence of these items in the building now represents an immediate health and safety threat as well as an obstacle to our ability to completely address and eliminate the hazard,” Mini Storage told customers in an email late last week.
“Accordingly, we are now undertaking actions to evacuate the contents of all storage rooms in the basements of these two buildings,” the letter reads.
The news reduced some customers in tears.
“The only thing I care about was my entire life of writing,” said a tearful Mira Chang, 40, a film producer who paid about $90 a month to keep an archive of her work at the West 21st Street building. The other facility was also on West 21st Street.
Customers said the company didn’t notify them of any damage until a week after the storm and closed early as the monstrous cyclone approached.
“I realized all of that was gone — it’s toxic down there and so I don’t know if it’s even safe to bring it up. You go down there with a mask and you can’t even breathe” Chang said.
Ellen Hains, 48 said she lost everything from her grandmother’s 100-year-old chest to 20 pairs of shoes — now reduced to a moldy mess.
Customers like Hains and Chang— who’s lockers were in the flooded basement — were distraught.
“I’m traumatized,” Hains said.
Harris said she was told the company may not be able to reimburse customers because the flooding “was an act of God.”
The company said no one’s belongings are being discarded.
“We tried in every way imaginable to reach out to our guests to tell them to come down over the weekend and clean out their belongings,” said company spokeswoman Stacy Stewart, who said if customers can’t get down to the site, their items will be moved to another location.
She said the company will work with customers on a case by case basis, and may compensate some for their losses.