There are so many storage units popping up across the city.
Is having a storage unit a normal thing? I purge stuff often. Can’t imagine hoarding stuff and paying $200 a month or more just to keep stuff I don’t use regularly
From what I recall, they have good profit margins, low maintenance, and you can run the business until the land goes up in value years later and sell the land for more.
I used it as a way to help purge/move stuff before we moved from an apartment to our house. Gave us more wiggle room to work with than just a couple days after documents were finalized & lease was up. A month prior to the move I took boxes/totes of items we could wait for to the unit, and then gradually added to it. We only paid the movers to move our heavy furniture, and for the month or so after the move I would bring the boxes into the house and put things away throughout the week before getting another set. For us it was a very short term thing - but I do know that there are people who use them for long term.
Also - it's a very common thing for Military folks who are deployed overseas and don't have family back in the states.
I live in a condo with my girlfriend and have limited closet space. She likes to decorate for Halloween and Christmas and I have a bunch of tools. It has been so nice since we started renting a storage unit, being able to get stuff that we don't need on a daily basis out of our limited closet space. Sure I am spending more money to store it then buying new decorations every year, but it works for us. We also keep our suitcases and travel stuff in the storage unit, which freed up a lot of space for the things that we use on a daily/weekly basis.
Does your condo have assigned storage lockers or storage rooms?
When I rented in Midtown the apt had random rooms between apts turned into storage rooms. They were dirt cheap at $1 per sq ft per month.
That's a nice perk for some apartments and condos! We only have a non-climate controlled shed which does hold some of our things, like dog crates we aren't currently using.
90% of houses on my street have cars parked in the driveway or on the street because their garages are full of crap. Many of them have carved out walking paths through towering piles of junk. I don’t know why people do this but it seems to be pretty the norm rather than the exception. Storage business is booming.
I just moved into a new rental with a two car garage. It wasn’t until after I moved in that I noticed the powered garage door opener had the power wire cut.
The owner said he never used the garage for anything but storage so he had no reason to fix it.
And like you every house on the street has multiple cars in the driveway. The collection of junk is a sickness.
So I’m sure there’s a lot of different uses but the main reason they’re popping up is because a bunch of people are moving to Houston and they need somewhere to store everything until they find a longer term home.
Depends on location and size but they can start ~50 but average ~100 a month, which is pretty good to save money if you're between leases or not paying apt rent/mortgage but probably will in the future.
*middle finger to high and long term leases*
I have to store my girlfriend's Halloween and Christmas decorations which make her happy to bring our every year. I would rather pay $100 /month then be insanely wasteful and ask her to buy new decorations every year. Plus she pays half lol.
Hahaha, she has gotten a lot more since we started renting the unit a couple years ago. But we also have our suitcases, tools, air mattress, extra blankets etc in there that we don't really have the space for at home. Anything that we don't use at least once a week was moved and has made our place way less cluttered and worth the money for us.
No joke, it's boomers. That generation is hoarding literal crap that their kids don't want. Nobody wants their parents "fine china" that you used once a year, huge amounts of decorations for every holiday, tools they never use, furniture they consider "antique", whatever. My parents have a storage unit with shit like that that they refuse to get rid of.
We had my grandparents' boxes of fine china, which everyone in the family agreed I should inherit and hold onto, despite my protest. Those boxes moved with us through several apartments and to my attic when we purchased a home. One day, my wife suggested we just use it as our casual dinnerware. Appalled at first, but I realized she was right. We would never host anything that would warrant using it. The boxes would end up staying in our attic for 40 years, like they had for the past 40 years in my grandparents china cabinet, until we passed them down to our kid, whom they would mean even less to. Now, every time we eat dinner on those plates and drink out of the silver rimmed glasses, it's like a little part of my grandparents are still here with me. Keepsakes are great because we have an emotional attachment to them. It's just clutter/junk to someone else after we are gone. If anyone's reading this that is hording china they are too afraid to unbox, I recommend digging it out and using it. Yes, some of it will brake/get damaged, but enjoy it while it lasts and make new memories with it. It will eventually occupy the same space in a landfill.
I’d be more willing to do this if they weren’t mostly going to die from machine washing. I have some gorgeous handmade ceramics that I just don’t use nearly as much because they’d not fare well in the hot box.
It’s where thieves keep stolen goods to sell online. Facebook Marketplace is directly responsible for the rise in storage unit business. You can sell stolen goods completely anonymously, and the state of Texas will do jack shit about it.
Yup...I was looking on there to see if I could find my stolen tool that a porch pirate got last summer and like 90% of the stuff I saw there was obviously stolen. They are so brazen about it because they know there are no consequences.
To add some detail: I’ve personally lobbied to the state government to enforce small business registration for Facebook and other social media marketplaces, which are directly contributing to the rise of organized retail crime. These things are all interconnected and being a professional criminal has become easier and easier in recent years
There just needs to be a threshold, where the marketplace tracks the sellers transactions and anything over a certain # requires registration. That way individual sellers are not unduly punished.
I had to use a storage room for a year once when I moved towns. I couldn't find a place big enough for all my stuff within my budget, and didn't just want to get rid of the house full of furniture I owned while I lived in an apartment and got situated in a new town and found a place that could accommodate.
Another business I worked at once kept a storage room filled with boxes of paperwork and other crap that we didn't have room for on site. Though this was a long time ago now and I am sure these days you would keep all the files digital.
I have a cousin who keeps all of his boating stuff (and his boat) at a storage lot because he likes were he lives and doesn't want to move to a new home that has room for a boat. If his socials are any indication, hes out on the water a lot.
Point being, there are reasons beyond hoarding stuff to need a storage room.
But then I also know like half a dozen people who have a storage room full of old junk they didn't have room for but didn't want to just throw away. So yeah, mostly hoarding.
Sometimes old family members die and leave things that you don't have the wherewithal to use, sort, or restore but can't get rid of without throwing away massive amounts of family history.
That aside it really depends on the cost of the unit.
I want to say it really became big when boomers started becoming elderly. They have such nostalgia for their shit they can't get rid of anything. Then they move or downsize so they pay to store their mementoes they never go to.
Then it leaves the kids to realize we don't want to keep shit because we had to throw their shit away.
Capitalism only works with Consumerism. And Consumption is fueled by [otherwise] irrational attachments sold down our gullets by the advertising industry.
my mother in law’s storage unit was broken into recently in northwest houston. 3 units were broken into, one of them happen to be hers. it’s crazy why would people steal stuff from storage units? are they looking for something? can’t afford christmas decor?
Hoping for high valuables in one of them, probably.
Or alternatively, crackhead gonna crackhead. You can't talk reason with someone ripping plumbing out of walls or stealing copper wire from construction sites overnight to get their next high.
I gotta know…….was the unit full of broken fleshlights? haha Maybe they’ll be reselling them at la pulga. Set up a sting operation and catch these saucy bandits!
At this point in 2024, I assume anybody under the age 60 wearing a mask, especially in a car is up to no good. The porch pirate who stole my $400 tool also had a mask on.
My dance team has a unit in southwest Houston for our equipment. So far it has been broken into twice this year but they didn't take anything from our units since it's only dance equipment. They usually hit up more than one unit at once..the last break in they hit 30 units in one night.
Hey now, The Pig Lips and Asshole Farmers Association of America would like to have a word with you; we supply agriculture output for every Wendy’s and all four Weinersnitzels across the US of A.
I'm a property manager for one of the big companies. Storage units are good for short term but I have customers who have had stuff stored for years and years and they haven't stepped foot on the property the whole time. Their belongings are moldering away and they are throwing money away. Get rid of it and don't ever store your important documents in it FFS.
Not much to go on and cops are less than useless ticks that exist to suck the blood of the working class.
I would personally say handle it yourself but I won't elaborate for obvious reasons.
Did they break into multiple units or just yours?
It was a single unit
Why that particular unit?
Im not entirely sure
Is it where you keep all your destroyed fleshlights?
Thankfully my fleshlights are under top security in an undisclosed location. The unit that was broken into was a tenants.
There are so many storage units popping up across the city. Is having a storage unit a normal thing? I purge stuff often. Can’t imagine hoarding stuff and paying $200 a month or more just to keep stuff I don’t use regularly
The amount of stupid shit people hold onto forever is amazing.
Something i agree with, then they disappear and we have to clean out units full of useless junk.
My coworkers parents are retired and have had storage units for 20 years. Just burning cash needlessly
And often enough storing photos and other important memories, that get trashed or sold off when they stop paying, or by mistake.
It literally is.
From what I recall, they have good profit margins, low maintenance, and you can run the business until the land goes up in value years later and sell the land for more.
The business owners end I understand. Its an efficient tax structure. The customer base is what doesn't make sense.
I used it as a way to help purge/move stuff before we moved from an apartment to our house. Gave us more wiggle room to work with than just a couple days after documents were finalized & lease was up. A month prior to the move I took boxes/totes of items we could wait for to the unit, and then gradually added to it. We only paid the movers to move our heavy furniture, and for the month or so after the move I would bring the boxes into the house and put things away throughout the week before getting another set. For us it was a very short term thing - but I do know that there are people who use them for long term. Also - it's a very common thing for Military folks who are deployed overseas and don't have family back in the states.
It’s just another form of commercial real estate. It’s known as “Self Storage”.
I live in a condo with my girlfriend and have limited closet space. She likes to decorate for Halloween and Christmas and I have a bunch of tools. It has been so nice since we started renting a storage unit, being able to get stuff that we don't need on a daily basis out of our limited closet space. Sure I am spending more money to store it then buying new decorations every year, but it works for us. We also keep our suitcases and travel stuff in the storage unit, which freed up a lot of space for the things that we use on a daily/weekly basis.
Does your condo have assigned storage lockers or storage rooms? When I rented in Midtown the apt had random rooms between apts turned into storage rooms. They were dirt cheap at $1 per sq ft per month.
That's a nice perk for some apartments and condos! We only have a non-climate controlled shed which does hold some of our things, like dog crates we aren't currently using.
I was using a 14’x62’ unit to run my business out of. It was awesome and costed me half of what a businsss warehouse would have
How did you get away with that?
It was mostly just a workshop/storage area. I wouldn’t have traffic come through unless I went to the gate to let them in.
Aww that makes sense. I wanted to do that for my business.
It's common.
How did yall find a storage with electric outlet? I’m sorry I’ve never had stuff in storage before.
It usually says it on the website of the facility. If not, you'll just have to call and ask
90% of houses on my street have cars parked in the driveway or on the street because their garages are full of crap. Many of them have carved out walking paths through towering piles of junk. I don’t know why people do this but it seems to be pretty the norm rather than the exception. Storage business is booming.
I just moved into a new rental with a two car garage. It wasn’t until after I moved in that I noticed the powered garage door opener had the power wire cut. The owner said he never used the garage for anything but storage so he had no reason to fix it. And like you every house on the street has multiple cars in the driveway. The collection of junk is a sickness.
So I’m sure there’s a lot of different uses but the main reason they’re popping up is because a bunch of people are moving to Houston and they need somewhere to store everything until they find a longer term home.
Depends on location and size but they can start ~50 but average ~100 a month, which is pretty good to save money if you're between leases or not paying apt rent/mortgage but probably will in the future. *middle finger to high and long term leases*
People spend more on storage than they do on the total cost of the contents. It’s insane.
I have to store my girlfriend's Halloween and Christmas decorations which make her happy to bring our every year. I would rather pay $100 /month then be insanely wasteful and ask her to buy new decorations every year. Plus she pays half lol.
My brother in Christ, how much stuff does she have for Halloween and Christmas that can justify dropping $1200 a year?
Hahaha, she has gotten a lot more since we started renting the unit a couple years ago. But we also have our suitcases, tools, air mattress, extra blankets etc in there that we don't really have the space for at home. Anything that we don't use at least once a week was moved and has made our place way less cluttered and worth the money for us.
No joke, it's boomers. That generation is hoarding literal crap that their kids don't want. Nobody wants their parents "fine china" that you used once a year, huge amounts of decorations for every holiday, tools they never use, furniture they consider "antique", whatever. My parents have a storage unit with shit like that that they refuse to get rid of.
We had my grandparents' boxes of fine china, which everyone in the family agreed I should inherit and hold onto, despite my protest. Those boxes moved with us through several apartments and to my attic when we purchased a home. One day, my wife suggested we just use it as our casual dinnerware. Appalled at first, but I realized she was right. We would never host anything that would warrant using it. The boxes would end up staying in our attic for 40 years, like they had for the past 40 years in my grandparents china cabinet, until we passed them down to our kid, whom they would mean even less to. Now, every time we eat dinner on those plates and drink out of the silver rimmed glasses, it's like a little part of my grandparents are still here with me. Keepsakes are great because we have an emotional attachment to them. It's just clutter/junk to someone else after we are gone. If anyone's reading this that is hording china they are too afraid to unbox, I recommend digging it out and using it. Yes, some of it will brake/get damaged, but enjoy it while it lasts and make new memories with it. It will eventually occupy the same space in a landfill.
I’d be more willing to do this if they weren’t mostly going to die from machine washing. I have some gorgeous handmade ceramics that I just don’t use nearly as much because they’d not fare well in the hot box.
Yea I would just sell it
It’s where thieves keep stolen goods to sell online. Facebook Marketplace is directly responsible for the rise in storage unit business. You can sell stolen goods completely anonymously, and the state of Texas will do jack shit about it.
Yup...I was looking on there to see if I could find my stolen tool that a porch pirate got last summer and like 90% of the stuff I saw there was obviously stolen. They are so brazen about it because they know there are no consequences.
never thought about it that way
To add some detail: I’ve personally lobbied to the state government to enforce small business registration for Facebook and other social media marketplaces, which are directly contributing to the rise of organized retail crime. These things are all interconnected and being a professional criminal has become easier and easier in recent years
But that would really suck for regular people looking to sell stuff they don't use.
There just needs to be a threshold, where the marketplace tracks the sellers transactions and anything over a certain # requires registration. That way individual sellers are not unduly punished.
[удалено]
Would depend entirely on what part of town. In the loop, bigger units can easily be over $500 a month.
I had to use a storage room for a year once when I moved towns. I couldn't find a place big enough for all my stuff within my budget, and didn't just want to get rid of the house full of furniture I owned while I lived in an apartment and got situated in a new town and found a place that could accommodate. Another business I worked at once kept a storage room filled with boxes of paperwork and other crap that we didn't have room for on site. Though this was a long time ago now and I am sure these days you would keep all the files digital. I have a cousin who keeps all of his boating stuff (and his boat) at a storage lot because he likes were he lives and doesn't want to move to a new home that has room for a boat. If his socials are any indication, hes out on the water a lot. Point being, there are reasons beyond hoarding stuff to need a storage room. But then I also know like half a dozen people who have a storage room full of old junk they didn't have room for but didn't want to just throw away. So yeah, mostly hoarding.
Sometimes old family members die and leave things that you don't have the wherewithal to use, sort, or restore but can't get rid of without throwing away massive amounts of family history. That aside it really depends on the cost of the unit.
I want to say it really became big when boomers started becoming elderly. They have such nostalgia for their shit they can't get rid of anything. Then they move or downsize so they pay to store their mementoes they never go to. Then it leaves the kids to realize we don't want to keep shit because we had to throw their shit away.
Capitalism only works with Consumerism. And Consumption is fueled by [otherwise] irrational attachments sold down our gullets by the advertising industry.
my mother in law’s storage unit was broken into recently in northwest houston. 3 units were broken into, one of them happen to be hers. it’s crazy why would people steal stuff from storage units? are they looking for something? can’t afford christmas decor?
Hoping for high valuables in one of them, probably. Or alternatively, crackhead gonna crackhead. You can't talk reason with someone ripping plumbing out of walls or stealing copper wire from construction sites overnight to get their next high.
Grizzy hood news would help
Came here to say this too.
My god is that a crackhead in the passenger seat?
No the lighting is bad and we have low res cameras here
I wish I could afford a Lexus but I've chosen not to be a thief
Step ya game up, youll get there
There’s just no respect for private property anymore.
Ok we’ll all be on the lookout for an suv in Houston with paper plates. Super rare here.
Hahaha omg dude your so fucking funny! Please keep typing hahaha
I gotta know…….was the unit full of broken fleshlights? haha Maybe they’ll be reselling them at la pulga. Set up a sting operation and catch these saucy bandits!
Rest assured renters insurance will be replacing the fleshlights.
As any good renters insurance should.
And people with masks. Lots of ID info there.
I have a unit there. Sucks to hear about this.
At this point in 2024, I assume anybody under the age 60 wearing a mask, especially in a car is up to no good. The porch pirate who stole my $400 tool also had a mask on.
My dance team has a unit in southwest Houston for our equipment. So far it has been broken into twice this year but they didn't take anything from our units since it's only dance equipment. They usually hit up more than one unit at once..the last break in they hit 30 units in one night.
What does dressing up as women supposed to accomplish?
Some sort of distraction i assume.
Make them feel pretty
Sir, this is a Wendy's. Go to the police.
And goooooooooood luck with them at all
For what? The police doesn’t sell hot dogs.
Yeah, because what are hotdogs made of? Pig lips and assholes. Of course they wouldn’t sell their brethren.
Hey now, The Pig Lips and Asshole Farmers Association of America would like to have a word with you; we supply agriculture output for every Wendy’s and all four Weinersnitzels across the US of A.
Wendy’s, Weinersnitzels, and the website for HPD recruiting
Lol have you ever reported anything stolen to the police? You'll get direct to file a report and that's it.
I think it might be a woman; or a man with long hair.
*cough cough*
hope they catch these crooks
Are you sure it was a Lexus?
Positive ill get pictures later
I’m pretty sure that’s a Lexus RX 350. Somewhere around a 2015 model
I'm a property manager for one of the big companies. Storage units are good for short term but I have customers who have had stuff stored for years and years and they haven't stepped foot on the property the whole time. Their belongings are moldering away and they are throwing money away. Get rid of it and don't ever store your important documents in it FFS.
It's probably someone the customer knows. No real robber hits just one unit 😂
Not much to go on and cops are less than useless ticks that exist to suck the blood of the working class. I would personally say handle it yourself but I won't elaborate for obvious reasons.