Mold has torn through units at a climate-controlled Public Storage facility in Brownstown Township, Michigan, destroying furniture, clothing, and irreplaceable keepsakes for more than a dozen renters who say the company never told them anything was wrong. Stephanie Campbell was one of them — she lost nearly everything stored in her unit, including belongings that had once belonged to her late fiancé, David, who died in a tragic accident in 2025.
A Facebook Post, Not a Phone Call
Campbell kept furniture, David's clothes, her children's toys, and other possessions in the unit, choosing it specifically because it advertised climate control, according to ClickOnDetroit. She pays $224 a month for the unit. She didn't learn mold had covered her belongings from Public Storage itself — she found out on September 4 through a Facebook post, the station reports.
By the time she went to check, mold had spread across nearly everything inside, and Campbell ended up discarding almost the entire contents of the unit. She told the outlet the damaged belongings mattered deeply to her and to David's children. Reporter Kyla Russell found that more than a dozen people were affected, and that renters have since banded together in a group chat that now counts 16 members comparing notes on their losses.
Management Stays Silent Pending Investigation
When those renters pressed management for an explanation of what caused the mold, they were told the company would stay quiet until an internal investigation wrapped up — the exchange that gives the ClickOnDetroit report its headline. That silence has left tenants like Campbell, who estimates her own losses at around $15,000, without answers about how a climate-controlled facility ended up this contaminated.
Climate-controlled units regulate temperature, but industry legal analysis compiled by Radius Plus notes that such units do not guarantee humidity control or prevent atmospheric moisture intrusion during extreme weather — a gap that creates recurring mold risk even in units marketed as protected. That distinction matters here, since renters like Campbell chose their units specifically for that promised protection.
Insurance Falls Short of Covering Losses
Public Storage's standard tenant coverage, the Orange Door Storage Insurance Program, caps total payouts at $5,000 per unit, with limited coverage for fungus, according to disclosures reviewed on the program's own FAQ page. Claims are underwritten by Starr Indemnity & Liability Company and processed by third-party administrator Sedgwick. Program disclosures also show a wholly owned Public Storage subsidiary reinsures the financial risk behind the coverage, meaning the parent company profits directly from the same insurance premiums it collects from tenants alongside their monthly rent.
Renters' insurance agreements may cover some expenses from the mold outbreak, but by the renters' own accounts, that coverage falls well short of their actual losses. For someone estimating $15,000 in destroyed belongings against a $5,000 policy cap, the math simply doesn't work in the tenant's favor.
Michigan Law Limits What Tenants Can Recover
Michigan's Self-Service Storage Facility Act, MCL 570.521 et seq., doesn't classify self-storage operators as bailees of stored property, and standard commercial rental contracts routinely release operators from liability for mold, water, or atmospheric moisture damage, according to legal statutes cited by Justia. That statutory framework helps explain why affected renters face steep legal barriers in seeking damages directly from facility management, even when the unit was marketed as climate controlled.
The stakes are compounded by what mold does to porous belongings once it takes hold. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidance states that mold-contaminated porous goods — clothing, soft toys, paper documents, upholstered furniture — generally cannot be sanitized and must be thrown out, because spores penetrate deep into interior fibers. Even dead mold spores on porous items remain allergenic and hazardous, per the agency's guidelines, which explains why Campbell and other renters were left with little choice but to discard nearly everything.
Corporate Silence Extends to Local 4's Inquiries
ClickOnDetroit reports that Local 4 contacted Public Storage's corporate office and visited the Brownstown Township facility directly. A property manager there said the station would need to call the company's chief legal officer, but provided no phone number to reach that office. The chief legal officer did not answer Local 4's phone call, and the station sent a message through LinkedIn, according to the station's reporting.
Public Storage is the nation's largest self-storage operator, with more than 3,000 facilities and over 200 million net rentable square feet nationwide, including 61 properties across Michigan, according to the company's investor relations materials.
A Pattern Beyond Downriver
This isn't the first time sealed storage units have destroyed valuable stored possessions through mold contamination. Hoodline previously reported on mold ruining school supplies at New Horizon School in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, which is overseen by the Beaver Valley Intermediate Unit; the items had been kept in temporary storage during renovations. Regional schools pledged donations, and a teacher posted a wishlist.
For now, the cause of the mold outbreak at the Brownstown Township facility remains unexplained publicly, and it's unclear whether Public Storage has issued any formal notices to affected tenants beyond the assurance that management is staying quiet until its investigation concludes. Renters like Campbell are left waiting — and adding up losses that insurance was never designed to fully cover.
