Self storage industry featured in the Daily Mail

Self storage was recently featured in an online article by the Daily Mail newspaper, which combined some interesting facts with a range of personal stories from self storage customers to create a detailed profile of the industry.

A snapshot of the self storage industry

The article took a critical view of self storage centre architecture, referring to them as ‘monolithic eyesores’ and ‘big tin warehouses’, while offering a nostalgic homily to the lock-up garage as an alternative means of storage space, recalling the role it played in numerous episodes of vintage TV shows like The Sweeney and Only Fools and Horses.

However, it also explained what a successful business the self storage industry has become, drawing particular attention to the fact that the UK’s seven largest operators put together now make over £200 million each year.

Behind this boom has been the range of modern lifestyle factors which give people greater needs for storage space, including more divorces, later marriages and the rise of downsizing.

Particular attention was devoted to the generation of so-called “boomerang kids”; young people who have been forced to return to the parental home after attending university because of the difficult housing market, whose possessions often end up in self storage units when space becomes too short.

Personal stories from self storage customers

The most unusual self storage customer this article highlighted was 39-year old businessman Dave Bailey, who revealed he spends nearly £8,000 a year on a 600 sq ft unit at Lok’nStore in Sunbury, Middlesex – to house his collection of Star Wars memorabilia.

He explained that having already filled the large loft in his nearby home, his wife would only allow him to keep a life-sized statue of Yoda in the living-room.

After that, he was forced to find a new home for subsequent additions to his collection, and self storage presented the best available option. Indeed, the ease of upgrading to gradually larger units has enabled the collection to keep on expanding:

‘I bought statues of Darth Vader and Jar Jar Binks. They are over 7ft tall – so I doubled the size of my unit. Then Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Maul turned up. So now my unit is a treble garage. That’s given me room to put a TARDIS in it.’

The unit has clearly become something of a home away from home for Mr. Bailey, as he admits to visiting it at least once a week to check on his collection.

Some unconventional business customers were also highlighted. Mark Gopaul, a martial-arts instructor, ran out of room at home to store all the equipment he needed for his business teaching tae kwon do, so he got a self storage unit for it instead.

There’s also Gary Beswick, the proprietor of Dinosaurs and Fossils, the largest eBay retailer of fossils in the UK.

He spends £300 a month renting a unit in Chesire to store his wares, which vary in value from a £2 shark tooth to a £24, 995 woolly mammoth tusk. Established in 1995, his company sells these items to private collectors, schools and museums and turns over more than £1 million a year.

Then there are the people who use self storage owing to life events. Claire Mitchell, 28, is described as “the Boomerang Kid” because her story seems typical of the cohort this expression describes.

Unable to afford renting, she moved back in with her parents and now spends £60 a month keeping things there isn’t room for at home in self storage.

This allows her to put the money she saves towards a deposit on a house, although she does reflect that she ‘probably could have brought anything that’s in the storage unit twice over with the amount of money I’ve now spent.’

Self storage facts

The article ends with a set of ten self storage facts, which predictably focus on the more lurid side of how people have used self storage units.

Chief amongst them is the fact, originally revealed by Storage.co.uk, that people have been conducting romantic trysts inside self storage units.

They also repeat a mysterious urban legend about a self storage customer who keeps a stuffed dog in his unit and regularly visits it because his wife won’t let him have their former pet in the house, although this isn’t attributed to any particular self storage company.