We live on a 600m2 block in suburbia, but my elder daughter lives in a unit in towards Sydney and while she can’t do all the stuff we do she makes a pretty good effort to live more sustainably and takes advantage of what resources she does have. Surprisingly enough, one of those resources is the underground carpark beneath her unit block.
Root cellars are used to store food in because of their relatively stable, cool temperatures and the urban carpark has some features in common with the root cellar although there are some differences also. The carpark is not huge by carpark standards, probably 20 metres by 30 metres and can hold a couple of dozen cars so the inward and outward car movements are not huge on a daily basis and some spaces are not currently in use. While fumes could be an issue it seems well ventilated enough and they do not seem to be a problem.
My daughter buys bags of organic potatoes and local apples and needed a space to store them where they would last well but be out of the road and for the past couple of months she has been using the end of her car parking space as her cellar for several months and they have been lasting well. She keeps them in a cane bin which has a black cotton liner which can be tied over the top of the produce to exclude light. Unfortunately one difference between a normal cellar and the carpark is that the (fluorescent) lighting seems to be left on all the time and the potatoes do need to be kept in the dark to prevent the skin going green and the potatoes sprouting.
The bins are big enough to contain the 20kg bags of spuds and whatever apples she buys and due to the cotton liner and the cane there is adequate ventilation for both types of produce. She uses a chain and lock to secure the lids on the bins this is more to ensure nobody pinches the odd spud or apple. It is understood that locks are to keep out honest people but so far there has been no pilfering. If pilfering were to become a problem we could construct a lockable storage cage out of wire mesh to keep things secure.
After some reading it appears that wrapping the apples in grease proof paper will help prolong their storage life and slow down contamination of the other apples if one should go bad so that is on the list of things to do. She checks the spuds and the apples regularly and if there is any deterioration those individuals are removed for use immediately.
If you live in high or medium density housing and have a carparking space in an underground carpark where you live, you might want to look at what you need to do to turn a part of it into your own personal cellar.
