‘That’s all I want, that’s all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know?’ — George Carlin
George Carlin’s take on how possessions, or ‘stuff,’ influence our decisions is typical Carlin — funny, insightful and, occasionally, NSFW. And he’s got a great point. We start accumulating ‘stuff’ from the moment we’re born, and taking care of our stuff is important to us — even if we have more stuff than we can handle in a house, which Carlin described as ‘a pile of stuff with a cover on it.’
So maybe you have more stuff than space and you’re looking for storage options. You’re not alone, and the self-storage industry is a major beneficiary of our desire to keep our stuff.
Self-storage is a $24 billion business in the United States, with more than 52,000 properties and 73 miles worth of rentable space, according to the Self Storage Association (SSA), a non-profit industry group. Almost 11 million U.S. households rented a storage unit in 2013, according to SSA data, and more than half of those self-storage renters lived in single-family suburban households.
Renting a self-storage unit for short-term warehousing is a good idea if you’re moving or adding onto your home, but it’s not a great plan for long-term storage needs. Regardless, a 30-percent plurality of American households rent units for two years or more, according to the SSA.
SSA data show the average cost of renting a 10-foot-by-10-foot unit to be $115 a month. If you want to add climate control, the price jumps to $146 a month, and that doesn’t include additional fees. A 10-by-10 unit is roomy enough to store the contents of a living room or two full bedrooms, according to the Extra Space Storage website.
Using the SSA average, renting a 10-by-10 for two years, without additional fees or climate control, costs almost $2,800. And at the end of two years, you may still have more stuff than space.
Owning storage building is a better long-term storage investment.
WeatherPort®, a brand from Alaska Structures®, offers portable and durable Quonsets, Gable Buildings and Heavy Gable Buildings that are available in a wide range of colors and ideally suited to meet your small or large residential storage needs. We can design home storage solutions to accommodate insulation, electrical and HVAC systems for climate-controlled storage. We also offer garages and carports.
WeatherPort® is a brand of high-quality fabric buildings from Alaska Structures®. Read more about our various Fabric Buildings or to get a price quote on the Fabric Building. Feel free to email info@weatherport.com or call +1-970-399-5909.
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