Enabling consumption

Having extra space is not without its downfalls, and for some of the participants knowing they had room still available at their self-storage unit made them feel they could buy more things without there being any adverse consequences. Lily described having too much space as ‘dangerous’ since it enabled more things to be purchased and acquired without the physical constraints of maintaining a liveable, clutter-free home.

Lily: Because if you've got the space you just fill it up! And if you don't have the space you avoid filling it up and getting more things.

This phenomenon in relation to ‘surplus space’ is something Gellen (2012, p. 74) has previously observed occurring when household size declines and rooms subsequently are ‘underutilised’ in day-to-day activities; he found that as the amount of space per person increases so does per capita consumption. Ed outlined the same problem as Lily, stating that he felt “you expand to fill the space you’ve got”. He then went on to describe how having things in two locations (home and self-storage) could be problematic, in that you would misplace and forget where things were, and this would lead to wasting time and effort trying to locate them.

Ed: So I guess at the end of the day limiting the amount of space is quite good because you're not going to get yourself into a situation where you've got everything in the wrong place, which you could do I think.

That's the downside of having lots of space.

Only one participant, Oliver - a business owner with two storage units and a shop, said he had a physical list of where his things were stored. When asked, all others said they simply relied on being able to recall from memory where their things were located. This

recall was challenging, particularly when things had been stored for longer periods of time. Many participants explained that they had forgotten what they owned, let alone where these things were located. This extended from whether they had stored them at home or in self-storage to where and how they had been packed away. For example, even recalling which box an item had been packed in was impossible.

As well as enabling further purchases to be made, the availability of space in self-storage also had implications for how participants approached disposal (for which there is a more thorough exploration in 5.2). Jacoby et al. (1977, p. 27) found that “As the amount of available storage space increases, the probability that an item will be kept will increase, and the probability that it will be thrown away will decrease”. This, as Dawn and Stuart described, had a knock-on effect on the way abundant possessions were dealt with and the organisation of their homes.

Dawn: It can make you quite lazy. Because you have what you have in the house, and really we'd be even tidier I think, you know, you would be tidier if we didn't have self-storage because we'd have to organise it even more. Whereas you sort of put everything you want to in the house and then you kind of forget that you've got all that stuff in self-storage that you are paying for.

---

Stuart: If I didn't have storage I would have been much more severe with that I've gotten rid of.

In a number of ways, it seems that having too much space makes the ‘sins’ of materialism and laziness easier but also less evident. Having things stored in self-storage, removed from the everyday lived spaces of the home, invests homes with signs of moral propriety as clutter and excess are put out of sight. Minimising the visibility of one’s material convoy, however, risks forgetting the extent and nature of what is owned.

4.4 Chapter conclusions

In the first instance this chapter explored the ways participants used self-storage to cope with clutter, excess and overflow. They described two main circumstances for which the storage ‘antidote’ was administered: a mismatch between the number of things in their possession and available storage space; and the ensuing overspill of domestic

‘driftwood’, as ‘placeless’ objects cluttered up surfaces and corners of their homes (Löfgren 2017). It is likely that these experiences are repeated across the UK, as the design of modern British houses has been critiqued for falling short of recommended housing space standards (Roberts-Hughes 2011). For example, it is less common in new-build houses to have in-built wardrobes, under-stair/ airing cupboards and utility

rooms as these spaces are turned over to extra rooms. The loss of these spaces is significant because they are not as marginal as attics and garages (although also lost to conversions and surplus things), and are therefore used more routinely in everyday practices of sorting, keeping and storing things (Gregson 2007).

Using self-storage in place of or in addition to storage spaces in the home required participants to evaluate the characteristics of the spaces in relation to their possessions.

A hierarchy emerged dependent on their value (monetary and sentimental) and frequency of use (Douglas 1993). This was individualised depending on how participants placed value on their things, but those things that were deemed to be ‘irreplaceable’ like family photographs and keepsakes generally were kept in the home, where participants could ‘keep an eye on them’. The notable exception to this was Vicky, whose home situation – a poorly maintained council house with a leaky attic in a neighbourhood blighted with anti-social and small-time criminal activity – did not provide the level of security she wanted for some of her most important things. Vicky differs from the majority of participants because she works in the same storage site where she has a unit (she receives a significant discount), whereas the others tended to have middle-class occupations that meant they had the income needed, not only to afford monthly payments on self-storage units, but rent or own houses in areas where burglary was less prevalent.

Insights then further suggested that self-storage can locate collections and ‘hoarded’

things, and even enable the acquisition of more things. Moral propriety was upheld in the home by (dis)placing things into self-storage which could be thought of as excessive and without virtue. More generally, the narratives in this chapter identify the importance of self-storage as a space to manage what could be seen as, ‘disobedient objects’ which cross boundaries, categorisations and cultural norms. Participants could be seen to be engaging in practices of categorisation of their possessions (regarding use and sentimental value), storage spaces (suitability dependent on the things requiring storage) and (in)actions (perceiving themselves as/ in relation to ‘lazy’ hoarders). They purposively categorise self-storage as the right place for the things which are ‘out of place’ in the home (Douglas 2000), affirmatively choosing to put stuff at the margins because that is where – according to social conventions – it ‘should’ be. It is tempting to conceptualise self-storage as the place for overspill but, as is further explored in the following chapter, it is the only correct space for some things.

The narrative in this chapter have described instances of objects, which are perceived as ‘out of place’, being placed into the marginality and liminality of storage spaces, including storage units. The apparent differences and similarities between

self-storage units and self-storage spaces in the home continue to factor in the following chapters and this is explored further in the conclusion (section 8.3).

5 Contingency – Containment of