Just traveling through my city and noticing so many of these storage unit buildings. ExtraSpaceStorage, USTOR, and so forth.

For when you have too much money and things but somehow not enough space in your goddamn house. I can't imagine paying a monthly fee for an oversized closet.

What is the point of holding on to so much crap? Sell it/donate it/give it away, for fuck's sake.

Any hexbear knowledge of developing countries that have storage space as a part of their lives? Because apparently this is a growing sector of the American economy :facepalm:

Gonna try more angry/venting posting and less lurking.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    first worlder here. i've only personally known 3 people that had storage space.

    • one was running a small business out of it, and basically kept delivered inventory there for a few days until it was time to install it on site.
    • one had a unit for about a week to facilitate some kind of post-marriage merging of two households worth of shit while setting crap aside to sell. they both had a ton of shit.
    • one was this woman i had been dating for about a month. i have a smallish place and i like having open spaces in rooms to stretch and shit and i had moved around a lot for several years, so my whole life had been pruned down to a single pickup truck load of shit multiple times. anyway, this women shared a house with someone and had a single room worth of stuff, or so i thought. come to find out she had a massive garage at her parent's place in the country that was just full of furniture. and some commercial space that was also crammed with more furniture. and a huge (10x30) storage unit that was jammed and stacked full of more furniture. she was barely 30 and somehow had acquired like multiple hoarder houses worth of stuff. like multiple ornate dressers full of clothes. armoires/wardrobes, couches, chairs, china cabinets. stuff i don't even know what it is, because it's just something rich people have. like multiple bar serving carts. she had more shit than my boomer ass parents, who had recently been on the receiving end of their parents estates and hadn't managed to get rid of all that stuff.

    just conceptualizing the amount of stuff she had still makes me feel anxious. she was broke AF, but was unwilling to part with any of it (despite the cost of storage) and seemed actively trying to acquire more. she did want to "loan" me items (that i didn't want). she would identify places in the house i was renting that could accommodate some piece of furniture and then tell me i should borrow it. she couldn't or didn't want to understand that i didn't want to have to turn sideways to move down my own hallway, make it impossible to do sun salutations in my bedroom, or create a situation where i had to do advanced ballet moves to take off my boots when i got home.

    i know some people find satisfaction or comfort in having lots of things. it was real big with people who made it through the depression to have heirlooms to pass down. but i just can't. i've got a few things to pass down if anybody wants it, like some small artwork i've made. but i agonize over furniture purchases and am usually trying to find ways to decrease the square footage that my stuff occupies.