Singles Night at the Self Storage Facility

The self storage industry has a surprisingly intimate connection with personal relationships. It is there to help when a couple comes together and chooses to make two houses into one; to save the relationship in clashes over excessive hoarding and/or tidiness; and to provide shelter to the possessions of the ejected partner when divorce strikes.

First, love

So, two singles come together. If they are not in the first flush of youth, they may well each have their own flat, both stuffed to the gunwales with treasured possessions. When they join forces under one roof, they are going to have to shed some of these, unless they move into a new home twice the size of their own individual flats.

Self storage is on hand to help. It can be a useful solution not only to stop the new home looking as jam-packed as a charity shop, but to avoid scenes of teary martyrdom as Great Aunt Angelica’s green-plush dining-room suite is heaved into the skip. Self storage can relieve the pressure, while decisions are made; and, in fairness, Great Aunt Angelica’s green-plush dining-room suite may seem more attractive when it has spent a year or two out of sight and out of mind in a self storage unit.

In pursuit of domestic bliss

Some way down the line, self storage may well again come to the rescue, not simply when the happy couple/family moves house (the conventional time when self storage is called upon, accounting for some 60% of the self storage trade), but also when one or other of the partnership develops habits in the field of materialistic accumulation that are considered excessive by the other. One direction of travel may be towards minimalism of the most frugal, pared-down kind, sometimes associated with refined taste; the other may be heading towards clutter, a style sometimes termed flatteringly as “Edwardian”. Both can edge into pathological tendencies, and both, if left to fester, can corrode domestic bliss with terminal results.

Step in self storage: here is the balm that relieves the minimalist of the fear of suffocation, and provides the hoarder with a legitimate outlet for his/her tendencies.

Marriages have been saved by self storage. It is difficult to quantify how many and how often, however, because to raise the issue not only resuscitates it, but also reminds the beneficiaries of the accumulated costs of this solution. But the financial penalties should be set against the benefits: and what price domestic bliss?

“Out of my sight”

So, it didn’t work. Well, one in four don’t. Time to split the household again, and many couples who are desperate to separate cannot wait to free themselves of every material reminder of the relationship down to the last toothbrush. (Great Aunt Angelica’s green-plush dining-room suite has probably already been axed into matchsticks.) You could stuff everything that offends the eyes into suitcases and tea chests, leave them on the pavement outside the front door, and change the locks. Better for enhancing your alimony prospects, however, is to contact your local self storage facility. Abandon all the two-timing traitor’s worldly goods in a self storage unit, but don’t throw away the key.

Singles night

So, self storage can see couples through the full cycle. If fact, self storage gains so much business from it that one facility manager commented, “I think we should run a regular singles night.”