Storage Nation
Some people are astonished that I’m so proud of it.
They think we’re funny that we’re spending money
to store things.
-- Beth Silver Pilchik, 36, a marketing consultant who
admits talking about her storage unit with friends at
cocktail parties.
She also jokes that the storage locker she rents at
Manhattan Mini Storage has better security than
their Upper East Side apartment.
They are not the only ones taking this approach to clutter.
According to Michael T. Scanlon Jr., president of the Self
Storage Association, a trade group, 11 million American
households currently rent storage space, an increase of
90 percent since 1995 — even as the size of new American
houses has grown and the size of the American family has
shrunk.
In the last two years, close to a million more households
have joined the ranks of storage renters, and there is
now more than two billion square feet of rental storage
space in the United States, earning more than $22 billion
in gross revenue in 2006.
Jerelyn concurs.