How much stuff do Americans own? A lot, obviously, with a new report showing that 21% of U.S. adults store some of this stuff in self-storage facilities and another 15% saying they’ll turn to self-storage in the future.
That’s the big finding from StorageCafe’s latest self-storage study, released in late April. StorageCafe asked about 18,000 people why they use self-storage, what they keep in it and what types of self-storage units they use.
An interesting finding? People in the 40- to 55-year-old age group, Gen Xers, are the most likely to rent self-storage units, with 23% of the people in this age group doing so. These Gen Xers most frequently rent 10-foot-by-10-foot non-climate-controlled self-storage units, mostly because they say they don’t have enough room for all their stuff at home.
Adults from the ages of 24 to 39, mostly Millennials, are also frequent self-storage users, with about 21% of them storing items in units today.
Even older Americans are using self-storage, with StorageCafe finding that 21% of people from the ages of 56 to 74 are currently renting storage space.
Why do people turn to self-storage? StorageCafe found that 40% of survey respondents say they don’t have enough storage space at home. An additional 34% said that they were moving and needed temporary storage.
Furniture is the item most commonly stored, with 34% of respondents say that they use self-storage units for this purpose. A total of 22% of respondents said that they store clothing in self-storage units, while 20% said they use these units for home appliances and equipment.
