The locker tenant who pays for years and then loses his stuff

When I posed this question 3 years ago RFR had this to say:

What shocks me more is just overall how people pay to store crap. Even a small unit is like $35 a month in my area. So many units are just old clothes you know people will never wear again. Old patio furniture people will never use again.

It seems like many people store stuff that in the end they are just gonna wind up throwing away or giving to goodwill anyway. I really don't get it.


Any thoughts from forum members here in February, 2014

In 2012 I got a locker that had been in storage since 1982. It had not been opened since 1982 and it was pretty good. Some high end fishing rods some nice furniture lots of high end smalls.

That said I got several in the last year that had been in storage over 20 years and they were mostly trash. Pressboard furniture books no one wants anymore magazines from the 80s and 90s just junk.

Yes a lot of people store things of little real value and just let it sit for years because they can not stand to get rid of it.

Yeah, I don't get why people store some things. I can understand if someone is kicked out of their home and they need a quick place to store their stuff and lose it in a few months.. but those who continue to pay on it for years and years.. baffles me.

I have a friend that has a unit he has been paying on for over 10 years. It is a 10x20 and he pays $90.00 a month for it. I asked him one day out of curiosity what was so valuable that he could pay that much money to store. His answer was a riding lawn mower his ex-wife who has now passed away bought for him 20 years ago and a bunch of paperwork. He has put a dresser and a table in there over this time but really? How can someone be sentimental over a riding lawn mower?

How can you be sentimental over just about anything?  It's not the object your attached to but the memory it triggers.  I've seen people hold onto weird stuff.  Way more weird than a mower.

How can someone be sentimental over a riding lawn mower?

Not the same thing of course, but I'm sentimental over the days starting (for me) in 2004 when I could spend $200 and get a locker that today would go for $1,000 to $1,500.

I have a friend who is similarly sentimental over his first buy 25 years ago. Imagine what HE is feeling.

Have you ever opened the fridge and got a whiff of something that went bad?  Why on earth would you spend money on groceries you're never going to eat?  Bet you have though.  I'm sure it has something to do with the same principle.  Long after you've forgotten what you stored there, you still think it was worth the cost because you haven't revisited the issue.

I disconnected my DirecTv service a little over a year ago.  Had it for at least 10 years before that.  Had gotten to the point where I only turned the tv on for 15 minutes in the morning while I'm getting ready for work.  The only video I was actually using was netflix / youtube.  Kept paying that cable bill for probably 3 years past when I should have stopped.  Probably never would have quit had money not gotten tight enough I really had to rethink it.

The same reason people keep paying for gym memberships they never - or rarely - use.  It is human nature; we kid ourselves into believing we will sort through the unit and, "boy, it will feel GREAT to consolidate AND save money!"