Ask the Readers: Is self-storage worth the money?
What’s the opposite of a pack rat? Whatever that is, it’s me.
95% of the time, I only buy what I need. I take good care of my belongings and make everything last as long as possible. But if something is beyond repair or just severely outdated, I toss that junk as if it smelled like rotting food. I have a zero tolerance policy on clutter, all thanks to certain family members who drove me crazy with their obsessive buying and hoarding, and then leaving their crap all over the house.
MP Dunleavey recently pointed out that the nearly eight-fold growth of the self-storage industry (from 289 million square feet in 1984 to 2.2 billion square feet in 2007) coincides with the explosion of credit card debt of American consumers. This could be pure coincidence, or perhaps as Dunleavey argues, it’s a sign that we have a “nationwide consumption disorder that needs to get better before things get a whole lot worse.” In other words: we’re buying too much stuff we can’t afford and have no place to put it.
I don’t always agree with what Dunleavey has to say, but this time I think she has a point.
According to one storage expert she spoke to, most people who rent a storage space use it for old tax returns, newspapers, collectibles, their children’s old toys and parents’ old belongings. However, Dunleavey is convinced storage spaces are also holding credit-fueled shopping sprees.
Well, I just don’t know for sure. I’m completely biased. I would never rent a storage space. Zac and I already pay big bucks for our cozy (read: small) San Francisco apartment. There’s no way I’m going to pay an extra $130 for a 5’x5′ space to store stuff I never need to see regularly. (And $130 is on the cheap end of the scale by renting in the crack-head part of town.)
I say we take this matter up to the readers.
And for those who rent storage space: What do you put in there?
[Photo by Tracy Collins.]
I did use storage when I was in a several-month transition between to apartments. I also have a friend who’s storing his recently deceased parents’ belongings until he can sell or go through them. Other than that, I can’t imagine any justifiable reason someone would use storage outside of maybe being in a rental situation where you don’t trust your roommates around your expensive equipment. That’s insane!
My sister had a two month time frame where she considered using a storage rental to hold things in between moves. When she figured out how much it would cost to store the furniture and such, it cost more for the 2 month rental of the space than the replacement costs of the things she was considering storing. She sold it all in a quick garage sale and moved on. Later, after she moved, she was freed to buy new things that fit the space better anyways.
Chris and DivaJean: You make good points. I think a storage space only makes sense if it helps make a transition easier.
And if you’re moving, it makes even more sense to forgo storage, sell the big stuff, and use the money towards new things that will fit better in the new space. I’ll be sure to remember that if I ever have to relocate.
My ex-husband stored a fancy couch because he didn’t want us “ruining” it by using it. I figured out that it cost him $3,000 to store the couch–which would have been plenty of money to buy him a new couch when I finally kicked him out.
John: I’ve done this only once in my lifetime… it was in between selling a house and buying another and I couldn’t quite get the escrow periods to coincide. For sixty days I lived in a B&B while my personal property crashed at the Public Storage facility. Slate has a great article about this topic called Self-Storage Nation:
Ideal for short term storage, between houses, if you decide to sell your house/apt and travel for an extended time but want to return to your big personal items and that sort of thing. To have one just to store more stuff, to me it just compounds the problem of letting stuff smother your life. On more than one occasion my mother has said – oh if you got storage than you could buy x,y,z seasonally. And I say – if I don’t need, don’t have space for it, the last thing I need to do is pay to keep stuff elsewhere.
I put my stuff in storage when I moved in with my girlfriend into a very small apartment in another city. We bought a house, had to do renovations, etc., and now 2 years later, I finally took it out of storage. It’s aggravating to think of all that time my stuff ended up sitting there and all that money I spent on it! I could have reduced it, but getting rid of it all was not an option. I do have the packrat gene and there’s no way I could emotionally trash my boxes of photos from when I was in the Peace Corps or my grandmother’s furniture. So at the end of the day, I’m glad I had the storage unit for that time.
I have resisted spending the time and money on a storage unit since moving to L.A. where I have a very small bedroom with small closets, but what I would put in it is my Christmas stuff. It’s killing my closet space, and because I only use it once a year, it’s in the back/bottom of the closet jigsaw so once a year everything has to come out to get to it.