by Jason L. Nielson

The September moving rush is on, with or without a moving truck. Door-to-Door Storage, in Haverhill, will provide the trucks, the containers and someone to haul it away.

The service tries to remove some of the stress in moving by eliminating a few of the steps, said Bert Smith, district manager of Door-to-Door storage in Haverhill.

He said he understands that the actual process of moving is the last thing on people’s minds.

“Moving is a stressful event,” said Smith. “It’s something that needs to be planned and given attention to. We deliver containers to a customer and drop them off. They take their time loading them, and then, we pick it up and store it in our warehouse until they need it back.”

“What it does is eliminate the loading truck, putting it in storage, and getting another truck,” he said.

The Seattle-based Door-to-Door storage opened its Greater Boston office in Haverhill in March 2001. The company also operates City-to-City Moving. Smith said that from Aug. 15 to Sept. 15, it will average about 60 deliveries a day in Somerville.

“We can easily double our normal capacity between Aug. 15 and Sept. 15,” he said.

A single-bedroom apartment will average about two containers. The storage containers are five-feet wide, eight-feet long and seven-feet tall, he said.

Smith said that depending on how well one packs, a person can fit an entire bedroom and wardrobe into one container.

Typically, a customer would call the Haverhill office and give the service representative an inventory of everything they will be packing and receive a recommendation for the number of containers needed, he said.

The prices range from $300 to $1,600 for five storage units. The containers are required to remain in storage for at least three months, he said.

Once the customer places the order, a date and three-hour window is scheduled to drop off the storage containers as well as to date and time to pick them up. Depending on zoning laws, a customer can take anywhere from a day to a week, for a residential customer, he said.

The city does have a policy for the storage units. But, the city is in the process of developing one that will be probably similar to the one regarding rental trucks, said Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone.

“We are in the process of developing the policy, something similar to the policy with rental trucks,” the mayor said. “It will probably be presented this fall to board of alderman.”

For rental trucks, residents must fill out an application and pick the “no parking” signs themselves from the department of traffic and parking, he said.

Residents also need to block off the necessary parking spaces themselves, she continued. She didn’t think that the size of the storage permits would be permissible on the sidewalk, he said.

Smith said he rarely sees anything in the containers because customers lock them up by the time he picks them up for storage. But, the oddest shipment he was involved in was when he dropped off and picked up 24 containers full of flyers for a campaign.

“It’s not uncommon for someone to need 12 to 15 storage containers. I also had 21 containers for one customer,” he said.

To access their storage containers, a customer needs to only call two hours in advance. Insurance coverage is also available, he said.

Door-to-Door Storage is located in Haverhill and more information is available at their Web site: doortodoor.com.