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I disagree with the last point -- it's a pain to gather a bunch of things up, put them in vehicles (or rent a truck), find a storage facility that isn't full, r

• neutronicus 9d ago
  You're hauling the stuff regardless. Dealing with renting a storage unit vs deciding to throw away your Pokemon cards feels like kind of a wash.
  • diskzero 9d ago
    Are you infinitely wealthy? Storage units are a slow leak on finances, just like uncanceled subscriptions and mobile phone plan features.
    • neutronicus 9d ago
      No, I'm not, and I've also never rented a storage unit. It seems hard to imagine the sums involved becoming comparable to other amounts of money lit on fire to avoid fights with family though (i.e. home renovation, travel).
      • diskzero 9d ago
        Interesting comparison and one I didn't consider. Thanks for the insight!
    • vel0city 9d ago
      Rebuying decorations every year is also a leak on finances. Rebuying a bunch of camping gear (more than I can comfortably store in my home) is also a leak on finances. It's far cheaper to use a storage unit for a lot of this stuff I do routinely use than buying and selling a house just to get more storage space at home. I'm not blind to the fact not everyone just stores junk they never use. I'm certain there's a percentage of stuff in mine that is probably better off sold or trashed. But until we stop changing decorations for the different seasons, stop a number of hobbies with bulky stuff, or move to a giant mansion I just don't have the space and could use a few more square feet of pure storage space.
      • wildzzz 9d ago
        The answer is pretty simple: reduce your possessions to the space you can fill for free.
        • vel0city 8d ago
          So, own nothing. Every square footage of every home costs $$$ to keep in your possession. I pay a mortgage. I pay insurance. I pay taxes. I pay maintenance costs. There were acquisition costs in the purchase of it, and there will be acquisition costs wherever I go next. Not one square inch of my home is "free". Suddenly that simple answer isn't so simple when actually confronted with reality, unless you're willing to be homeless and just carry your possessions in your hands.
          • arbitrary_name 8d ago
            i think they are suggesting to rethink the need for things like seasonal decorations if you are forced to pay a life long recurring fee for the privilege.
            • vel0city 8d ago
              > if you are forced to pay a life long recurring fee for the privilege. I have to regardless of a storage unit or in a closet in my house. That closet in my home and that shelf in my garage isn't free either. So then it's just a question of owning anything at all or nothing, because it all has a life long recurring fee for the privilege of continuing to own it. And yes, my family finds value in decorating for holidays as a part of celebrating, remembering, and keeping traditions alive. Sometimes people don't just want to live in the same IKEA box 365 days a year.
              • sfn42 8d ago
                If you have a house with a garage and you still don't have enough space for your stuff then you have too much stuff.
    • sublinear 9d ago
      Who tf is breaking the bank on subscriptions and phone bills? Are all these comments like yours coming from college students or what? If anything else, a storage unit is one of the most valuable things to pay for if you just moved out on your own.
• OutOfHere 9d ago
  Why assume that disposal is warranted? Sometimes, people actually reuse what they store. Also, it's better to donate than to dispose.
  • browningstreet 9d ago
    Sure.. donation is easy, doesn't require a storage unit. When I've had storage units and spent time there, and saw open doors and what people had in theirs, I stand by my take. The whole point of the article posted above was that it's a bit weird how numerous and prevalent self-storage has gotten in the US.
    • OutOfHere 9d ago
      Donation isn't that easy if one has to find someone who actually desires each item. It requires a lot of online posts, communication, and overall effort, but this ensures that each item finds a new home that's right for it.
      • browningstreet 5d ago
        Every Goodwill donation center takes everything you bring there. They even come out to your car and carry it in for you.
  • pixl97 9d ago
    >Also, it's better to donate than to dispose Aka, trash by proxy. Best to look up what people actually need. There is a lot of this junk we collect that just gets junked by the donation groups turning into a cost center.
    • OutOfHere 9d ago
      Donating to donation groups isn't a great donation. It's better to catalog and post each item, communicate with people who want it, and thereby find it a new home that's right for it. Granted, this is not possible for all items, especially never for clothing.
• nemomarx 9d ago
  I'm glad you have free visits to the dump for it. I've never lived anywhere where I wouldn't have to also pay to get my trash hauled away, so it's a big pain with old mattresses or furniture honestly.
• ninalanyon 9d ago
  > My local town gives you two free visits to the garbage transfer station per year. Where I live in Norway the recycling station is open three days a week and I can take stuff there free as often as I like up to 2 000 kg of stuff per year. It has never occurred to me that there would be a limit on the number of visits. Or have I misunderstood?
  • throw5678 9d ago
    US here. where I am: Recycling is free, hazardous waste is open a few days a month (also free), appliances are free, and rubbish is measured by weight (they weigh your vehicle on the way in and out). They pay you to take metal.
    • ElevenLathe 9d ago
      Without any fee beyond the required annual solid waste bill, my municipality will let me set out up to 20 (!) bags of trash per week with up to 50 lb (!) in them every week. I can throw out two tons of trash per month without having to haul anything anywhere or pay any extra fees. Clearly this is madness, but it does make it a lot easier to throw shit out than put it in a storage unit.
      • jaggederest 9d ago
        Trust me, given how many people just accumulate trash because it's expensive, that's an absolutely sane and excellent policy. As a society, we want people to use trash disposal, because the alternative is expensive, painful, and disgusting.
        • cucumber3732842 8d ago
          You can literally tell which municipalities in my state have been hoodwinked by the Karens into adopting "pay as you throw". They're the ones where there's trash everywhere. It's like these people can't think two steps ahead (I'd go so far as to say that's the defining feature of regulatory policy in this state). You just gave people a financial incentive to litter and dump.
• rpdillon 9d ago
  Allowing people to put off the disposal ceremony is the primary value of the service!
  • deleted 8d ago
    [deleted]
• massysett 9d ago
  It is difficult for people to throw things away. Many things invoke "but this is a perfectly good..." I had a LaserJet monochrome printer. I knew I would never use it because I now have a color model, and if the color one broke I would replace it immediately. "But this is a perfectly good printer." It sat for a few years on a shelf before I finally tossed it. Resale nets too little to be worthwhile. Other things represent work. This is old files in the office. My workplace was full of file cabinets with drawers of papers. It was decades of accumulated knowledge. No one would ever read them or use them. But throwing them away seemed disrespectful of all the work that went into those papers. For these things, I think of my daughter's math homework. It is extremely valuable and lots of work went into it, and there is zero reason to retain it the instant it comes home. Other things represent memories. They embody a long friend or lost relative, or a vacation, or an occasion, or a feeling they caused when worn, used, etc. Discarding it seems to disrespect the memory. I try to keep these things to a minimum - keep representative samples, and digitize to the extent possible. This is why discarding things is hard. I don't want storage space and have none, but I completely understand why people would rather shove apparently useless things into a storage locker. It's easier to pay to store it than to discard it. I go a step farther and say that it's worth it for folks to pay to store these things. It's worth $80/month or whatever it costs to have that stuff sitting in a storage box, even if they know they will never ever use or even look at them.
  • nkingsy 9d ago
    facebook marketplace for $10 or $20 is magic. People don't like free as much as they like paying $10 or $20 for a $50 item
    • FireBeyond 9d ago
      A nominal fee convinces people they're getting a bargain. "Free" feels like you're driving to someone's house to pick up their trash.
      • freedomben 8d ago
        sadly, it is often true though. I learned early on that "free" usually meant "trash I don't want to deal with disposing of". There are of course people who don't do that (like myself) but that "price" is unfortunately a real signal to pay attention to
• michaelt 8d ago
  My theory is self storage is actually in competition with getting a bigger house. If your family is seriously considering moving to a bigger house, and that move is going to cost you $20,000 that makes renting a storage unit for $1000/year sound like a great deal.
  • jjav 8d ago
    > My theory is self storage is actually in competition with getting a bigger house. Obviously true. If one had a house with space for posessions, there would be no need for storage. As houses become ever smaller (for a given $/sqft) external self-storage becomes the only affordable way to gain some space. My parents were poor but back ~70 years ago it was still achievable for a lower income family to buy a house with some space. As an engineer in Silicon Valley, the largest house I can afford is barely twice the square footage of my childhood bedroom. In such a tiny house we fit 3 people, all with hobbies and equipment, child has toys, etc. A house with enough space would be another million at the very least. So that's impossible. So compared to that, a couple hundred a month for self-storage is a bargain. I hate it, would rather have the equity in a larger property but it is impossible to afford. So yes, that's why storage facilities have such a boom. Housing by $/sqft is impossibly expensive.