Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood packs two major research universities into a few square blocks. Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh sit side by side, and every May, thousands of students from both schools hit the same problem at the same time: where to put their stuff for the summer. The streets around Forbes and Fifth Avenues become a chaotic mix of U-Hauls, parents' SUVs, and students hauling furniture down steep sidewalks.

And Pittsburgh's terrain makes all of this harder than it should be. This is a city built on hills. Moving a futon down a flight of stairs is annoying anywhere. Moving one down a steep Pittsburgh hillside in the rain, then loading it into a truck parked on a 15-degree grade, is something else entirely. The city's narrow streets, limited parking, and aging apartment buildings (many without elevators) turn a simple storage run into a half-day ordeal.

Storage Scholars eliminates the logistics problem. We pick up directly from your dorm room or apartment in Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, or anywhere in the Pittsburgh metro. Everything goes into climate-controlled storage, and we deliver it back when you return in the fall. No truck rental. No navigating Pittsburgh's hills with a loaded dolly. No hoping your electronics survive a humid Steel City summer in a non-climate-controlled unit.

Move-out at Carnegie Mellon and Pitt happens fast. Both universities clear residence halls within days of finals, and students are competing for the same narrow window of time, the same moving trucks, and the same limited self-storage inventory in Oakland and surrounding neighborhoods. The UPS Store near Pitt's campus stays busy with students shipping boxes home, but that gets expensive fast for anything heavy or large. STORExpress and EZ Storage offer self-storage units, but you need to get your items there yourself -- uphill, in many cases.

Storage Scholars schedules pickups around both CMU and Pitt academic calendars. Book your spot in March or April, and our team handles the rest. We arrive with packing supplies, load your belongings, and store everything in a climate-controlled facility until August or September. No competing with 5,000 other students for a U-Haul reservation.

Incoming students at CMU come from all over the world -- the university's international student population is one of the largest in the country. Shipping belongings to Pittsburgh before arrival is often the only practical option. We receive your packages and deliver them to your dorm room on move-in day. This works for domestic out-of-state students too: if you're flying in from California or driving from the East Coast, ship ahead and skip the overloaded car or excess baggage fees.

Pittsburgh's geography creates unique moving challenges. Switching from a CMU dorm on the hill to an off-campus apartment in Squirrel Hill means navigating steep residential streets with limited parking. Moving from Pitt's Towers to a house in South Oakland involves steps, narrow doorways, and buildings that predate modern furniture dimensions. Our team knows Pittsburgh's neighborhoods and campus layouts. We handle dorm-to-dorm, dorm-to-apartment, and cross-campus moves without you needing to figure out which streets allow double-parking for a moving truck.