Americans Rent Storage Units for Stuff They Don’t Use

West African discovers paying monthly to store things nobody needs

The Great American Hoarding Industrial Complex

PHOENIX, AZ – Abena Mensah discovered her American neighbor pays $150 monthly to store belongings in a separate building across town—belongings he hasn’t seen or used in three years but also refuses to discard. The 28-year-old from Ghana experienced what she describes as “cognitive whiplash followed by economic horror.” “You pay rent for your stuff,” she said slowly, making sure she understood correctly. “Your belongings have housing. You’re giving furniture a monthly stipend to exist somewhere you’re not. This is the most American thing I’ve encountered, and I once watched someone pay $8 for coffee.”

In Accra, Mensah’s family owned what fit in their home. If it didn’t fit, you didn’t buy it or you got rid of something else. Storage units didn’t exist because the concept of paying to store things you don’t use would be considered a mental health crisis requiring intervention. In Phoenix, there are 47 storage facilities within 5 miles of her apartment—an entire industry built on Americans buying too much stuff, refusing to discard said stuff, and paying indefinitely to warehouse stuff in climate-controlled facilities nicer than some people’s actual homes.

When Clutter Becomes a Subscription Service

According to the Self Storage Association, Americans spend over $38 billion annually on storage units—more than the music industry, the movie industry, and common sense combined. Mensah did the math on her neighbor: $150 monthly for three years is $5,400 to store things he could’ve sold, donated, or thrown away for free. “You’ve spent $5,400 to avoid making decisions about possessions,” she calculated. “That’s not storage—that’s paying for the privilege of procrastination. You’re financing emotional avoidance of your own clutter.”

Jim Gaffigan said, “I don’t know what’s in my attic, but I know I’m not getting rid of it.” Americans don’t know what’s in their storage units, but they keep paying for them because canceling requires acknowledging you’ve wasted years of money on furniture you forgot you owned. Mensah’s neighbor admitted he doesn’t remember everything in storage. “Then how do you know you need it?” she asked. “I might need it someday,” he defended. “You’ve needed it zero times in three years,” Mensah countered. “At what point do you admit you’ll never need it? Year five? Year ten? Your deathbed?”

The Inheritance Nobody Wants Costing $200 Monthly

Mensah’s coworker pays $200 monthly to store her deceased mother’s belongings—furniture, boxes of papers, kitchen items nobody will ever use. “Why not go through it?” Mensah asked. “It’s too emotional,” her coworker explained. “So you’re paying $2,400 yearly to avoid emotions? That’s expensive emotional avoidance. Therapy is cheaper than storage. And therapy might actually help you process grief instead of just warehousing it in a temperature-controlled unit in Mesa.”

Dave Chappelle said, “Sometimes you have to let things go.” Americans have to let things go but they won’t, so they pay storage companies to hold things hostage while pretending they’ll eventually deal with them. Mensah’s coworker has paid $14,400 over six years to store things she admits she’ll probably never use. “You could’ve bought new furniture three times over with that money,” Mensah calculated. “But these have sentimental value,” her coworker protested. “Then bring them home,” Mensah suggested. “I don’t have room.” “Then they don’t have value—they have rent.”

The storage unit has become a museum of avoided decisions. Wedding gifts from a failed marriage. Exercise equipment from abandoned fitness goals. Children’s toys from kids who are now adults. Everything in the unit represents something—a hope, a memory, a purchase—that the owner can’t process, won’t use, but also refuses to release. “You’re not storing belongings,” Mensah observed. “You’re storing guilt, nostalgia, and poor purchasing decisions at $200 per month.”

When Buying More Becomes Easier Than Organizing What You Have

Mensah discovered Americans often can’t find things they own, so they buy duplicates, which creates more clutter, which leads to storage units. Her neighbor has three sets of camping gear—one at home, one in storage, one he just bought because he forgot about the other two. “You paid to store camping gear, then bought new camping gear, and now you have triple camping gear,” Mensah summarized. “Do you camp three times as much?” He camps never. The camping gear exists in theoretical camping future that never arrives because he’s too busy working to pay for storage units holding unused camping gear.

Chris Rock said, “You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy.” Mensah knows America is crazy when people pay to store things they forgot they owned while buying replacements for things they’re storing. Her neighbor’s storage unit contains: a bread maker (he now buys bread), a treadmill (he has a gym membership), holiday decorations (he uses different ones now), and boxes labeled “misc” from 2019 that he’s afraid to open because they might contain evidence of who he used to be.

The Climate-Controlled Unit for Items That Don’t Care About Climate

Americans pay extra for climate-controlled units—$180 instead of $120 monthly—to protect belongings from temperature fluctuations. Mensah’s neighbor’s climate-controlled unit contains: plastic storage bins (don’t care about temperature), old textbooks (paper survived centuries in non-climate-controlled libraries), and furniture covered in tarps (already protecting it from temperature). “You’re paying $60 extra monthly to climate-control things that don’t need climate control,” Mensah said. “That’s $720 yearly for unnecessary temperature regulation of inanimate objects. Your stored couch doesn’t appreciate the AC. It’s a couch. It has no feelings about being 72 degrees versus 85 degrees.”

Bill Burr said, “I’m not going to apologize for being right.” Mensah’s not apologizing for thinking storage units are expensive monuments to American overconsumption. “You buy too much. Your homes fill up. Instead of buying less or discarding more, you rent second locations for the overflow. You’ve created an entire industry around the problem of having too much stuff. The solution isn’t storage—it’s stopping the accumulation. But that would require admitting you have enough, and American culture is built on never having enough.”

The most American moment came when Mensah’s neighbor mentioned he’s “thinking about getting a bigger unit” because his current one is full. “Or,” Mensah suggested, “you could get rid of things.” He looked at her like she’d suggested arson. “These are my belongings,” he said defensively. “You haven’t seen these belongings in three years,” she reminded him. “They’re not belongings—they’re forgotten possessions you pay to ignore in a building across town. At what point do you admit you don’t actually want them?”

When Storage Units Become Generational Wealth Transfer Problems

Mensah discovered storage units often outlive their original purpose. Someone dies. Their kids inherit a storage unit full of stuff nobody wants. Options: sort through it (emotional), donate it (guilt-inducing), or keep paying for it (expensive but requires no decisions). Many choose the third option. “You’re inheriting monthly bills for other people’s clutter,” Mensah marveled. “Your parents’ inability to throw things away becomes your financial burden. This is the opposite of inheritance. This is debt disguised as belongings.”

Amy Schumer said, “I’m not saying I’m lazy, I’m saying I’m energy efficient.” Americans aren’t energy efficient—they’re decision-avoidant. Sorting storage units requires decisions: keep, donate, trash. Making decisions requires emotional energy. So people pay $150 monthly indefinitely rather than spend one Saturday making decisions. “You’re financing procrastination,” Mensah told her coworker. “That unit represents every decision you’re avoiding. Every item you can’t let go. Every purchase you regret but won’t admit. You’re paying $200 monthly to not deal with your relationship to material possessions.”

The Reality TV Shows About Storage Unit Auctions

America has TV shows where people buy abandoned storage units—units where owners stopped paying rent, forfeited their belongings, and those belongings get auctioned to strangers. “You have entertainment based on people’s failures to manage possessions,” Mensah observed. “You’re watching TV shows about the aftermath of Americans buying too much stuff, paying to store it, then abandoning it. This is dystopian. You’ve turned overconsumption consequences into content. And nobody sees the irony—you watch these shows from homes that are probably too full of stuff you might eventually put in storage.”

Kevin Hart said, “Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody wants to do the work.” Everybody wants organized homes, but nobody wants to do the work of actually discarding things. Storage units offer the illusion of organization—things are stored! Out of sight! Technically organized in a building 5 miles away! But it’s not organization—it’s displacement. You haven’t organized your clutter; you’ve relocated it to a unit you pay rent on like it’s a problem roommate you can’t evict.

Mensah’s most shocking discovery: people who downsize into smaller homes but keep storage units, thereby not actually downsizing. “You sold your big house to live more simply,” she said to her neighbor, “but you kept everything from the big house in a storage unit. You’re paying $150 monthly to maintain your old lifestyle elsewhere. You haven’t simplified—you’ve split your possessions across two addresses and called it minimalism. This is minimalism for people who don’t actually want to own less—they just want to see less while paying more.”

When Stuff Becomes More Important Than Space or Money

Last month, Mensah helped her neighbor move. They packed his apartment into a truck. Then they visited his storage unit to grab some items. The unit was 10×15 feet—larger than some bedrooms in developing countries—filled floor to ceiling with belongings he’s seen twice in four years. “This is $150 monthly,” she said, standing in the unit. “This space costs more per square foot than some apartments. You’re essentially renting a second home for your stuff. Your belongings have better housing security than some humans. This is obscene.”

Trevor Noah said, “In Africa, we don’t have the luxury of storing things we don’t use.” Americans have the luxury of paying $38 billion yearly to warehouse excess in facilities guarded, climate-controlled, and maintained better than affordable housing. Mensah’s observation: “You have enough wealth to own more than you need and pay to store the excess. Meanwhile, people lack basic necessities. Your storage unit contains three microwaves—one working, two broken—while people in my country save for years to buy one. The wealth inequality isn’t just income—it’s that some people pay to store broken appliances they’ll never fix while others can’t afford new ones.”

When asked if she’ll ever rent a storage unit, Mensah laughed while decluttering her closet and donating items she doesn’t use. “Never,” she said. “If I can’t fit it in my home, I don’t need it. If I haven’t used it in a year, I won’t use it ever. Storage units are for people who can’t admit they have too much stuff. Back home, we live with what we need. Here, you live with what you need plus what you might need someday plus what you used to need plus what you bought impulsively and regret but can’t discard because you spent money on it. Then you pay monthly to hide all of it in units you’ll eventually forget about until someone makes a reality show about auctioning your abandoned possessions to strangers who will also eventually abandon them in their own storage units. It’s a cycle of clutter begetting clutter, all generating profit for storage companies who’ve monetized Americans’ inability to let go.”

She paused, then added: “Your storage unit culture is evidence of broken relationship with possessions. You buy things seeking happiness. Things don’t provide happiness. But instead of stopping, you buy more things, run out of space, and pay to store unhappiness elsewhere. You’re not storing belongings—you’re storing evidence that consumption doesn’t satisfy. The storage unit is a monument to American excess. Every item in there represents a purchase that didn’t fulfill you. Every month’s rent is money that could go toward experiences, savings, or actual joy instead of paying to house regret in a 10×10 unit in a facility off the highway. But admitting that requires confronting uncomfortable truths about consumption, identity, and what actually matters. So you keep paying $150 monthly. And the stuff keeps accumulating. And the storage companies keep profiting. And you keep telling yourself you’ll deal with it someday. Someday never comes. It just costs $150 monthly.”

SOURCE: Bohiney Magazine (Aisha Muharrar)

DATE: 11/20/2025