It may seem like the most likely place to store your family heirlooms past down through the generations, but in fact, your attic may be the worse place.
The attic is an ideal place for critters such as rodents, bats and squirrels to escape to from the elements. Furniture will be greatly enjoyed in many ways except for the way it was originally intended. In addition to these less than tolerable house guests ruining your prized possessions, you may find that they can cause extensive damage to electrical wiring and plumbing leading to even bigger problems such as electrical fires and burst pipes.
Mother Nature’s Mood Swings
Your attic’s temperature is probably not regulated…unless it is used as an additional living space such as a loft or studio. Because of this, the items in your attic are subjected to freezing cold temperatures in the winter and boiling hot in the summer. This takes it’s toll on the priceless items you may have stored up there…especially porous items such as solid wood furniture that could absorb the moisture in the air on a very hot and humid day but freeze as the temperatures fall. The expanding and contracting will leave your valuables worthless relics. In addition to the varying changes in temperature comes roof leaks and mold. These will leave you pushing your antiques to the curb instead of getting your 15 minutes of fame on The Antiques Roadshow when it comes to town.
What Can You Do?
In a perfect world, we would all have room to show off all of our beautiful belongings, but most time it’s just not realistic. If you must store your items in your home, it would be best to use a part of your home that is less prone to all that nature has to offer. Of course, sometimes this is not possible and your attic is the best option. If so, it might just be worth your while to look into an alarm system that can alert you to changes in temperature, floods and smoke. Regular inspections for animals will help to reduce the likelihood of them entering and damaging your home as well.
