Honestly? It’s because we are all hoarders.
I don’t mean that in a mean way. I mean that in a “I have three coffee makers in my basement and I don’t even drink coffee anymore” kind of way.
Look around your house right now. Seriously. Look at your garage. Is your car actually in it? Or is your garage just a really expensive, really dusty closet?
That is why storage units are huge. We aren’t building houses with basements anymore. We aren’t building attics you can actually stand up in. Builders realized they could make more money by giving us high ceilings instead of square footage.
So where does your junk go?
It goes to us. We are Nearby Storage Rentals, and we are basically the attic your house forgot to have.
We are a nation of “just in case”
This is the big one.
- You have a high school yearbook. You haven’t opened it since 2003. But you keep it. Why? Just in case.
- You have a crib. Your youngest kid is ten years old. But you keep it. Just in case.
- You have a set of golf clubs. You hate golf. You went once. But you keep them. Just in case.
We are terrified to throw things away. It feels like we are throwing away money. Or memories. Or the potential of needing it later.
And you know what? That is fine.
I do it too. We all do it. The problem is, we run out of room. We have a two-bedroom apartment and a three-bedroom amount of “just in case.”
So you look at your wife, or your husband, or your roommate, and you have that conversation. “Honey, we can’t park in the garage anymore.” Or, “I can’t put the Christmas tree away because that closet is jammed.”
You need a pressure release valve.
A storage unit is that valve. You don’t have to make the hard decision to throw away Grandpa’s rocking chair. You don’t have to donate the skis you haven’t used in a decade.
You just… put them somewhere else. And you feel better. You feel lighter. You feel like you can walk through your hallway again without tripping.
Your life is not a straight line
I hate to say it, but life is messy.
- You plan to live in one city forever. Then you get a job offer in another state.
- You plan to have one kid. Then you have twins.
- You plan to stay married. Then you don’t.
The storage industry is huge because we are constantly in a state of transition.
Think about a move. Moving is the actual worst thing in the world. It is physically exhausting and emotionally draining. When you are packing, you hit a wall. You have a truck, but the truck is full. You have a house, but the house is too small.
What do you do?
You panic. You yell at your partner. You cry a little bit.
Then you call a place like ours. You rent a unit for a month. You say “It’s temporary. I’ll get it in a month.”
And then you don’t.
Because life happens. You get busy with the new job. You get busy with the kids in the new school. You get comfortable. You realize you don’t miss that china cabinet.
So you keep paying. It is easier to pay $100 a month than to deal with the furniture.
The stuff that doesn’t fit our current life
Let’s get specific.
I am not talking about trash. I am talking about nice things that just don’t fit our current reality.
- Seasonal gear. I live in a place where it is freezing for six months and boiling for six months. Do you know how much closet space winter coats take up? Or patio furniture? In the winter, I need my patio furniture inside so it doesn’t rust. In the summer, I don’t need my parka. It is a constant dance.
- Kids’ stuff. Little kids have the most gear of any human on earth. Bikes. Wagons. Cribs. High chairs. Strollers. They outgrow it in five minutes, but you are probably having another kid, so you save it. That stuff takes up a whole room.
- Hobby stuff. You bought a kayak. You used it once. It is taking up your entire driveway. Your neighbor hates you.
You can’t just throw this stuff away. It is expensive.
But you also can’t live with it.
So we store it. We are the middle ground. We are the compromise between your wallet and your spouse.
We want to feel “organized”
Here is a weird one.
Have you ever looked at an Instagram video of a perfectly organized garage?
It looks amazing, right?
We all want that. But we don’t have the discipline.
When you rent a unit, you get a fresh start. You take the junk out of the spare bedroom. Suddenly, the spare bedroom looks clean. You take the junk out of the garage. Suddenly, you can see the floor.
You feel organized. You feel like you have your life together.
Even though you just shoved all the clutter into a metal box two miles away, you feel like a clean person.
And look, we aren’t judging. At our facility, we don’t ask questions. We don’t judge your collection of antique dolls or your broken treadmill you swear you are going to fix.
We just give you the space to breathe. That is what we do at Nearby Storage Rentals. We let you breathe.
The online shopping problem
Amazon ruined us.
Let’s be honest.
You can buy literally anything right now. And it shows up at your door in two days.
We have become a society of impulse buyers. We buy stuff, we get excited, we open the box, and then… we have no place to put it.
So it sits in the corner. Then another box comes. Then another.
Before you know it, you have a pile of boxes stacked to the ceiling. You have a “box room.”
It is easy to buy stuff. It is hard to get rid of stuff.
The storage unit is the band-aid for our shopping addiction. It is the place where the stuff goes to wait until we figure out how to deal with it.
The bottom line (and the truth)
Look, I could give you a bunch of statistics about the economy. I could tell you about the housing market or the cost of living.
But you know the truth already.
You know why storage is popular. Because you need one. Right now.
I bet you are reading this and thinking, “Yeah, I have a corner in my basement that looks like a disaster zone.”
Don’t feel bad.
We are a country of movers and shakers, but we are also a country of “keepers.”
We keep things. We hold on. We attach memories to physical objects.
And that is okay.
You just need a place to put it all.
We built our business to be that place. Not because we like money (well, we do), but because we understand the struggle. We are customers too. We know what it’s like to have a garage so full you can’t even walk through it.
So go ahead. Rent a unit. Take your life back.
You don’t have to get rid of your stuff. You just have to move it. And we are here for that.
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