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The storage unit industry is one of the most awful, customer hostile industries I've encountered. It's impossible to get the local facility on the phone, public

The storage unit industry is one of the most awful, customer hostile industries I've encountered. It's impossible to get the local facility on the phone, publicly listed phone numbers are all redirected to a national call center where reps are unable to even accurately quote prices. TFA covers the insurance kickback scam. Then after I moved into my unit, I discovered 75% of the units in my facility could be broken into with zero tools because the padlocks provided by the facility had enough slack in the shackle that if you rotated the lock 90 degrees there was room for the bolt to slide the half inch needed to clear the bolt hole in the strike plate. Then there was the rodent infestation. The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. In TFA, their losses from theft was $500 and their insurance limit was $2,000. Within two years they would exceed that in rent payments on the unit. A Google search suggests the average storage unit tenancy is only 10 months. That's reasonable. Long-term storage only makes sense when the value exceeds what can reasonably be entrusted with the lax security of a storage facility.

tshaddox 2y ago
> The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. This is a tough one to manage psychologically, although it’s almost certainly also true of nearly anything you are storing in your own home. The difference of course is that home space is bundled inflexibly—you usually don’t have the option of paying 2% less for 2% less space.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  That's why it isn't true of your home. The cost of storing an item in your home (assuming you didn't buy a bigger house just to store the thing) is 0.
  - CrazyStat 2y ago
    Not actually zero. Closets stuffed full of stuff means more time wasted trying to find what you need and more time spent finding a place to store a new item.
  - s0rce 2y ago
    But you could downsize if you didn't store so much useless junk! I'm guessing billions in Bay area real estate is storing junk.
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    My point was that you could try to think of your storage unit as if the size and monthly cost of your home was more flexible, i.e. you can just pay 2% per month for 2% more space. When you chose your house there were presumably several options with different amounts of storage space at different price points. You could just treat the addition of a storage unit as increased granularity between those housing options.
    - qwertycrackers 2y ago
      Storage space is really just tacked proportional to bedrooms, for the most part. My house has what feels like a bunch of extra space because I wanted enough bedrooms for my family. They didn't need to come with so much extra, that's just how they build homes with more than a few bedrooms now.
  - ssl-3 2y ago
    The stuff I use every day (work/entertainment electronics, cooking stuff, some furniture, and clothes) can fit into a small-ish apartment easily-enough. But the stuff I use occasionally (like camping gear and car-fixing/woodworking tools) would not fit also into that same apartment, nor would my collection of hobby-related stuff like my (small, but non-zero) collection of vintage audio and computer gear. I mean: I'm not hoarding MicroSD cards here. I, like many others, have things that take up space. In order to keep these seldom-used things out of the way while maintaining the hope of having a tidy, presentable home, I need a place with a garage or a basement or an extra bedroom -- or a storage facility. Those things all tend to cost extra.
- troyvit 2y ago
  We call thrift stores "offsite storage" because it's almost always cheaper to buy a thing like a keyboard or furniture, use it until it gets in the way, then just return it until we find we need it again.
ebiester 2y ago
I think there are three use cases: 1. You are temporarily moving to a place outside your local area, or to a much smaller place. I was moving around for a year and a half, so I left my furniture and non-valuables in a storage unit until I would be settled again. 2. You live in a small unit in a big city. $100-$150 for an extra 50 square feet a month might be cheaper than the equivalent space and is a great choice for occasionally used items. if it's 4 dollars a square foot for living space or 2 dollars a square foot for storage space, that's a deal. 3. Short term holding: You're moving out of your rental in July, in AirBnbs until September when you've closed on your house. If you're in a suburban house and don't have enough space, that's a bad reason to have a storage unit.
- mycall 2y ago
  4. Liveaboard who wants to keep some stuff on land just in case a boat sinks.
  - FartinMowler 2y ago
    Wow, that's a somewhat rare edge case. Let me see if I can beat that (hold my beer): 5. Astronauts for Boeing Starliners who are not certain when their return flight will be.
    - mycall 2y ago
      Welcome to my world :)
    - pmarreck 2y ago
      I live in a boating town and there's a whole line of houseboats in one of the marinas, the others have plenty of boats that people seem to be living on board. No property taxes and the marinas always have bath/shower (and sometimes laundry) facilities; portable relatively efficient refrigerators now exist that can be either shore or battery powered, etc. Undoubtedly, some of these rent storage facilities.
- s0rce 2y ago
  I've used them in situation 1, my lease was up in current city and I had a new place in the new city so needed to move but the new job was paying for the move but it wasn't organized yet. I just put everything in storage and left the key with a friend. For situation 3 I was able to leave stuff with family but I would have paid for storage again. I lived in a few furnished places for a year. I plan to use it again for situation 2 when my free storage situation ends. My place is tiny and I can just store something in the facility next to my office for cheaper. They have their place. The argument that people pay more to store something then the value probably applies to all the junk in people's homes/garages. Must be billions in real estate in the bay area storing old junk.
rdtsc 2y ago
Sometime the storage places are not what they seem. Some are really about doing something with the land until its value goes up, hoping some developer will buy it the future. That is, it just has to be a low effort to pay for some management and property taxes, while waiting for the value to go up. They won't bend backward to "satisfy" customers, so speak.
YokoZar 2y ago
> The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. Sometimes, the best place to store something... is the store.

tshaddox 2y ago

> The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. This is a tough one to manage psychologically, although it’s almost certainly also true of nearly anything you are storing in your own home. The difference of course is that home space is bundled inflexibly—you usually don’t have the option of paying 2% less for 2% less space.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
That's why it isn't true of your home. The cost of storing an item in your home (assuming you didn't buy a bigger house just to store the thing) is 0.
- CrazyStat 2y ago
  Not actually zero. Closets stuffed full of stuff means more time wasted trying to find what you need and more time spent finding a place to store a new item.
- s0rce 2y ago
  But you could downsize if you didn't store so much useless junk! I'm guessing billions in Bay area real estate is storing junk.
- tshaddox 2y ago
  My point was that you could try to think of your storage unit as if the size and monthly cost of your home was more flexible, i.e. you can just pay 2% per month for 2% more space. When you chose your house there were presumably several options with different amounts of storage space at different price points. You could just treat the addition of a storage unit as increased granularity between those housing options.
  - qwertycrackers 2y ago
    Storage space is really just tacked proportional to bedrooms, for the most part. My house has what feels like a bunch of extra space because I wanted enough bedrooms for my family. They didn't need to come with so much extra, that's just how they build homes with more than a few bedrooms now.
- ssl-3 2y ago
  The stuff I use every day (work/entertainment electronics, cooking stuff, some furniture, and clothes) can fit into a small-ish apartment easily-enough. But the stuff I use occasionally (like camping gear and car-fixing/woodworking tools) would not fit also into that same apartment, nor would my collection of hobby-related stuff like my (small, but non-zero) collection of vintage audio and computer gear. I mean: I'm not hoarding MicroSD cards here. I, like many others, have things that take up space. In order to keep these seldom-used things out of the way while maintaining the hope of having a tidy, presentable home, I need a place with a garage or a basement or an extra bedroom -- or a storage facility. Those things all tend to cost extra.
troyvit 2y ago
We call thrift stores "offsite storage" because it's almost always cheaper to buy a thing like a keyboard or furniture, use it until it gets in the way, then just return it until we find we need it again.

ebiester 2y ago

I think there are three use cases: 1. You are temporarily moving to a place outside your local area, or to a much smaller place. I was moving around for a year and a half, so I left my furniture and non-valuables in a storage unit until I would be settled again. 2. You live in a small unit in a big city. $100-$150 for an extra 50 square feet a month might be cheaper than the equivalent space and is a great choice for occasionally used items. if it's 4 dollars a square foot for living space or 2 dollars a square foot for storage space, that's a deal. 3. Short term holding: You're moving out of your rental in July, in AirBnbs until September when you've closed on your house. If you're in a suburban house and don't have enough space, that's a bad reason to have a storage unit.

mycall 2y ago
4. Liveaboard who wants to keep some stuff on land just in case a boat sinks.
- FartinMowler 2y ago
  Wow, that's a somewhat rare edge case. Let me see if I can beat that (hold my beer): 5. Astronauts for Boeing Starliners who are not certain when their return flight will be.
  - mycall 2y ago
    Welcome to my world :)
  - pmarreck 2y ago
    I live in a boating town and there's a whole line of houseboats in one of the marinas, the others have plenty of boats that people seem to be living on board. No property taxes and the marinas always have bath/shower (and sometimes laundry) facilities; portable relatively efficient refrigerators now exist that can be either shore or battery powered, etc. Undoubtedly, some of these rent storage facilities.
s0rce 2y ago
I've used them in situation 1, my lease was up in current city and I had a new place in the new city so needed to move but the new job was paying for the move but it wasn't organized yet. I just put everything in storage and left the key with a friend. For situation 3 I was able to leave stuff with family but I would have paid for storage again. I lived in a few furnished places for a year. I plan to use it again for situation 2 when my free storage situation ends. My place is tiny and I can just store something in the facility next to my office for cheaper. They have their place. The argument that people pay more to store something then the value probably applies to all the junk in people's homes/garages. Must be billions in real estate in the bay area storing old junk.

rdtsc 2y ago

Sometime the storage places are not what they seem. Some are really about doing something with the land until its value goes up, hoping some developer will buy it the future. That is, it just has to be a low effort to pay for some management and property taxes, while waiting for the value to go up. They won't bend backward to "satisfy" customers, so speak.

YokoZar 2y ago

> The paradox is that the monthly cost of a unit will quickly exceed the value of whatever is stored there unless the items have sentimental value or are very expensive. Sometimes, the best place to store something... is the store.