Why do people spend so long in Self Storage?

According to a recent report from one of the large self storage companies, their average customers have increased the amount of time they lease their storage unit for from 15 to 18 months.

This has happened despite an economic climate which can at best be described as challenging. Even more remarkably, the same study revealed that fully a third of customers have now been storing with them for at least three years.

A single-site, independent, containerised self storage company located in South-East London (the polar opposite of Big Yellow in most respects) recently reported people staying for even longer: their average tenant had been with them for 4.7 years.

Even more impressively, this figure only drops to 3.7 when the top 10% are removed to prevent anomalies from distorting the result – such as a furniture company that’s been there for 15 years.

The clear trend is that people are staying for longer than ever in self storage. Given the cost, it’s interesting to ponder why this should be the case.

The quest for outer-space

One very important reason for the popularity of self storage is the tension between two contrary trends in modern living.

Young people these days are expected to consume; fuelled by cheap imports and easy credit, they purchase all manner of goods and chattels – clothes, electronics, sports equipment etc. – with an appetite that would disturb their thriftier ancestors.

A lot of this is motivated by their being highly fashion-conscious and wanting to seem in touch with the latest trends. But, paradoxically, at the same time the prevailing fashion in interior design is for minimalism: airy rooms kept impractically clear of clutter.

Self storage conveniently fills in the gap left by this contradiction, providing people with somewhere they can stash all the things they buy whilst allowing them to maintain a tidy home.

Even better, it lets them solve the problem of having bought too much by simply purchasing additional space, creating the perfect consumer solution to a uniquely consumerist problem.

It is perhaps people’s attachment to the tidy homes this creates that causes them to stay for so long in self storage. One young urbanite featured in a recent Sunday Times article provides an example of how far this can be taken, having spent £5,500 over 6 years on self storage in order to maintain her clutter-free flat –  and was so unconcerned about her belongings that she’d never even visited the storage centre.

No time to sort things out

The other great factor which makes people stay for so long is the time and effort required to move out of a unit that they’ve been steadily filling for several years.

Self storage is, above all, a trend of urban living, and urban living is about pressure. Not just on space, but on time as well; with so many activities and entertainments presented by the modern metropolis, few serious urbanites want to give up scant free time on a Saturday to scouring through their old clutter.

It is altogether simpler for storage customers to cocoon themselves in a sense of inertia about how much it is costing them, something direct debit payments help with.

As many as 70% of people renting storage space pay by this method, demonstrating how widespread this attitude is amongst the industry’s long-term clientele.

Business as normal

These are rather negative reasons for people to spend so long renting self storage space. A somewhat more positive one is the extent to which businesses use it, which have an incentive to stay for a long time as the space helps them to make  a profit.

Business storage accounts for nearly a third of tenants overall; most are either tradesmen needing to store tools and equipment, or retailers housing seasonal or excess stock.

Some companies even rent office space in self storage centres, a vital alternative for small businesses who would find traditional long-lease arrangements in dedicated buildings too expensive or inconvenient.

Then there are the smaller creative enterprises who hang on to their units long-term, such as fledgling musicians, who hope the work they do in them will be their ticket to fame and fortune.

For example, Somewhere Else, a band from West London who were in the news recently, spent 6 months just setting up their unit as a recording studio with the intention they’d then spend years there making music.

These groups of people all derive a tangible benefit from staying for so long in self storage because they either hope or expect to drive a monetary profit from doing so. The same is true of some domestic customers too, of course, who rent out newly cleared rooms to lodgers.

Counting the long-term cost

On the whole most long-term clients of self storage firms do not make any money from renting space. For them its expense simply becomes a default part of the lifestyle they want to lead – a fashion, which, like all the out-of-date clothes squirreled away inside their storage units, they seem determined to cling on to.

One Response to “Why do people spend so long in Self Storage?”

1. Aberdeen bathrooms says:

   March 6, 2011 at 8:58 pm

   Nice article there.There are so many reasons why self storage works for people.Many properties,most noteably in London lack space.This fills that void nicely.Their home may just be too small for everything they have.Some people will use it to store all manner of things.I loved theone with the people setting up a music studio,brilliant.As a business we need storage as well.One thing is for sure ,I see this as a growing market as properties become smaller.