Strategic Storage Trust Receives PETA Award for Banning Glue Traps

Large Company Joins National Trend in Looking Out for Small Animals

For Immediate Release:
September 12, 2013

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Ladera Ranch, Calif. — After learning from PETA about the cruelty of using glue traps to kill mice, Ladera Ranch–based Strategic Storage Trust, owners of SmartStop Self Storage, agreed never to use glue traps at any of its more than 110 locations in 17 states. Strategic will receive a Compassionate Company Award from PETA and a big box of vegan chocolate mice. Strategic’s kind decision comes a month after Newport Beach–based Westport Properties, owners of US Storage Centers, which operates more than 60 self-storage facilities in California and eight other states, removed and banned the devices from all of its properties.

“Strategic Storage Trust has made it clear: Cruelty to small animals is off limits at SmartStop Self Storage locations nationwide,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “By banning glue traps, Strategic has spared countless mice, birds, and other small animals a terrifying and painful end.”

Glue traps are pieces of plastic or cardboard coated with a strong adhesive. After getting caught in the traps, panicked animals struggle to escape—often breaking their bones and ripping the flesh, fur, or feathers off their bodies in the process. Some animals chew off their own limbs in an attempt to free themselves, and others get their noses, mouths, or beaks stuck in the glue. The more the animals struggle, the more they stick to the traps, only to die from exhaustion, injury, shock, dehydration, asphyxiation, or blood loss. Glue traps are also ineffective and fail to address the source of the problem—more mice simply move in to take the place of those who have been killed.

Strategic Storage Trust becomes the sixth self-storage company—in addition to a majority of the nation’s top banks and other financial institutions—to pledge not to use glue traps after hearing from PETA.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.