U-Haul Rental Services Busy as College Students Head Home

With online classes and nowhere to go, students head home.

DULUTH, Minn.- With colleges and universities across the Northland moving all classes online for the rest of the year and asking students to leave dorms, many are heading to their nearest U-Hauls to pack up and head home.

The only truck that Complete Auto Repair Service (CARS) has left is a cardboard model that sits on their front desk.

Their entire lot of U-Haul rental trucks on Howard Gnesen Road was cleared out on the first day students were told they had to be out of dorms, the owner of the business said.

According to students, with all online classes and Coronavirus continuing to spread, they wanted to get out of dodge and back to their families.

“They cancelled all class, and I’m like okay–that happened,” UMD Sophomore Christian Ritchot said. “It’s just kind of getting out of hand and we want to get back home before things get even worse up here. So we’re just a little on edge.”

While the mass rental of U-Haul trucks did help the business, it did not do enough.

Owner John Archer said despite them taking precautions–like wearing gloves while in customers’ cars–more people are cancelling their car repair appointments. “We’ll gladly pick up your car, deliver it with a safe, clean environment,” he said.

While normally the shop is booked for the next two weeks, they have openings as soon as the end of this week.

“It hasn’t really helped a lot either way right now, with this pandemic going on it’s a different world,” said Archer. “We’re seeing a lot of cancellations, we’re seeing a lot of people who don’t want to come in the store.”

But he said they will continue to remain open as long as they’re allowed, and he’ll try his best to keep as much of his staff working as possible. An increasingly difficult task. “All auto-service centers were deemed essential,” the owner said.

Right now CARS only has a couple of U-Haul trailers left to rent. You can go on the U-Haul website to find where in the Northland certain trucks are available.