The article presumed that the rise in the self storage industry is caused by overflow from the American dream and rampant consumerism, when I think it might be more characterized by the death of the American dream. How many people who rent self storage are homeless and storing their stuff away hoping they can retrieve it when they get back on their feet? How many people who rent storage units just can’t afford a house or a larger rental, but don’t want to abandon sentimental possessions like their books, clothes, childhood furniture, etc. A graph in the article shows investment in self storage increasing sharply after the Great Recession. Is this a coincidence, or is it because a new economic reality that requires thriftiness had arrived
How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
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Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Man this rings so true for me, even as I pull an engineer salary now. Keep moving a car around free parking spaces even though I haven't "used' it in a year, still squirrel away a bunch of useless shit because what if! I still have trouble turning down free food even if it isn't in line with my diet x.x poverty habits just stay with you
I just finally rid myself of boxes worth of old computer parts and cables. But what if I need 7 VGA adapters???
> But what if I need 7 VGA adapters???
All depending on what they were - you might wish someday you had kept one of them!
As somebody who "collects" old computer crap (ok, ok - hoards might be a better term), I had a situation not too long back where I needed one of those old adapters.
I had purchased an AMD motherboard that had onboard VGA; having gone so long since I last upgraded, I didn't read the fine print saying that onboard VGA was dependent on having an AMD processor with VGA built in (APU I think they called it). I had purchased a different processor for the socket, without that feature - thinking "naw, don't need it, because I'm gonna drop my GPU in there - and switch the BIOS over to use it".
I get everything together and I boot it. I get nothing on the monitor, and beeping - POST code saying no video, and I'm like "wtf?". Some quick research and such reveals my mistake: Without the APU version of the CPU, I can't change the BIOS to use the GPU in the PCI-E slot. But I don't want to spend a boatload more money on a CPU just to get this setup. So I have a plan: Somewhere out in my junk I know I have a PCI slot VGA card (like an old S3 Virge or such) - I just have to find it.
An hour of digging around finally nets me the card - has 4 meg on it - I figure that's enough to see the BIOS, right?
I boot it - and it sorta comes up, but everything's all glitched out, nothing's really working right, then it dumps to a screen with a "not enough video memory" error, and now I'm wondering "huh?". So I go dig some more...
30 minutes of digging, I find a different PCI video card with 8 meg; surely this will work. I slot it in and boot it; finally it boots - and I am greeted with this entire super-graphical fancy GUI for a BIOS setup, complete with mouse and everything! That's how long since I last did anything PC building-wise (I was replacing a Core2Duo machine); my last BIOS was textual. It was pretty apparent why it ran out of memory; honestly, I thought it was stupid - but what'r gunna do, right?
So after some orientation and such - I find where on the BIOS it was looking for the video card (of course, defaulting to "on board" - but you would think that if it didn't find it, it would then try the PCI-E slot, but nooooo), change it out, save and shutdown, then re-install my GPU on the PCI-E slot, reboot...
...and it worked.
Had I not had that old VGA card (granted, it's not the oldest I have - I have an EISA VGA card somewhere) - I would've been hosed.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern manufacturing is sufficiently weird that it messes with my sense of thriftiness. That it really is possible to manufacture new items less expensively than it is to repair them (especially counting my own time to do so). Like I can remember my grandmother knitting and darning socks. But she wished she had one of these sock knitting machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N7hsho4Sjg&feature=youtu.be... And no…
I was shocked and pleasantly surprised recently at $3 high quality plain tshirts (in multiple colors) that you can order online: http://www.michaels.com/apparel-crafts/t-shirts/876004921 I'm wearing a magenta one now.. Then I found out there are tons of online outfits doing this. https://www.jiffyshirts.com/ I've always shopped at Salvation Army and other thrift stores, with occasional trips to malls to pick up Levi'…
I only realized how big this market really is when I found out that Berkshire Hathaway owns Fruit of the Loom, a Gildan competitor.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#94One thing I've noticed over the years reading old wills and probate records (16th -18th century) is just how few physical possessions even fairly well-off people owned. Estate inventories often list individual coats, shirts, bedding, bowls, tools, etc. I think the material wealth we have today is so incredible we don't even realize how much we've accumulated and could probably do without.
Reminds me of the proverbial "Great Depression Mindset" that I noticed in my grandparents. Also this comment I came across on Reddit's Bestof recently that made me see the world and myself a little differently: > Minimalism often focuses on a few high quality pieces that serve many purposes. When you're poor, you often can't afford higher quality or multipurpose... https://np.reddit.com/r/minimalism/comments/86pkeu/m…
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Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been wondering why so many of them are popping up in the city core where I am, instead of more far-flung light industrial areas where they typically existed. The construction costs $/sqft must be a fraction of commercial building for Class A office or housing.
Usually city core real estate is controlled by a small cartel of owners. They usually cover their carrying costs with parking, as the class-B office space is worthless from a revenue perspective in most places. If it's a small/mid-sized city, sometimes these property guys get squeezed enough by periodic nuking of people at the local Bank of America/etc office that they actually need to do something with the property.…
> sometimes these property guys get squeezed enough by periodic nuking of people at the local Bank of America/etc office that they actually need to do something with the property.
Can you please explain this further? I am not sure what "nuking" here refers to.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#96Are there any apps to buy and sell spare space, e.g. in your garage, or basement?
Craigslist Parking & Storage section.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#97One thing I've noticed over the years reading old wills and probate records (16th -18th century) is just how few physical possessions even fairly well-off people owned. Estate inventories often list individual coats, shirts, bedding, bowls, tools, etc. I think the material wealth we have today is so incredible we don't even realize how much we've accumulated and could probably do without.
Reminds me of the proverbial "Great Depression Mindset" that I noticed in my grandparents. Also this comment I came across on Reddit's Bestof recently that made me see the world and myself a little differently: > Minimalism often focuses on a few high quality pieces that serve many purposes. When you're poor, you often can't afford higher quality or multipurpose... https://np.reddit.com/r/minimalism/comments/86pkeu/m…
When you're poor, you often can't afford higher quality or multipurpose
Interesting, I have heard "Cheap is expensive, because you have to keep buying it" as well "We are not so rich we can afford cheap stuff."
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you and there are short term reasons to put everything in storage. There is another group that just has stuff squirreled away "in case". I personally believe that most people would be happier following a less is more philosophy which can be approached simply by throwing out or selling or donating anything you haven't worn/used in the last year (or two).
A lot of these ideas assume childless adults. Bringing kids into things makes everything a lot different.
Yet most of the world manages to live in much smaller homes than Americans, and without self-storage. Getting rid of thing is a necessity especially when you have kids, since their current needs take so much space.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#99After dealing with the aftermath of my grandparents dying at close to the same time, I realized that I had waaaay too much junk. I felt terrible basically throwing their entire lives away, but came to the conclusion that if I die, no one will give a crap about 95% of the things I own.
I've tossed all non-essential things to the point where I have two plastic bins of things that are important to my life and that I like to sort through and think about past moments in my life. Everything else is surplussage and disposable. I tell family not to buy me trinkets or souvenirs when they travel. No Christmas gifts either.
Re: How warehouses for personal junk became a $38B industry
#100...and a majority of that personal junk probably could be given away or thrown out without the owners noticing.
The 'dirty little secret' of the personal storage industry is that a majority of customers never, ever access their stored junk -- yes, never. Their stuff just sits there, unused, in an enclosure in some warehouse, while the service provider collects fees month after month.
I say this based on my own and certain friends' past experiences with personal storage services over the years.