Stuff

New Residents Bring Lots Of New Things To Store

by Cate Huisman

Those of us who have driven occasionally over the past 20 years to the big cities to the south cannot help but notice a significant change: What we remember as farmers’ fields seem suddenly to be filled with big, single-storied, multi-garage-doored, self-storage buildings. Every trip to Costco or REI or the MAC seems to reveal a new one. How can they possibly all be filled?

While it may seem these structures constitute yet another appalling attack on our rural way of life, they are, in fact, on land that has been zoned for commercial or similar uses for years, which seems appropriate considering it is adjacent to the highway. And while it may also seem that we in North Idaho must be incorrigible packrats for having created a need for these units, we don’t come near to leading the pack nationally in storage units per capita. This urge to accumulate is, evidently, part of our national consciousness. We love stuff.

What are we packing away? It’s mostly household goods, said Ned Brandenberger, owner and president of Sandpoint Property Management, which manages a half dozen local storage facilities. A 10 x 20 unit is a popular size, he said, and the general wisdom is that this is big enough to hold furnishings for an entire two-bedroom apartment. We also need places to store our boats, RVs, and other toys out of the snow in winter, and maybe a place to work on them too.

As a sign of the times, a new, high-end, “deluxe” set of storage units are going in on the corner of Schweitzer-Cut off and Boyer near the sheriff’s office.

As more people move to this area, they’re bringing their own excess stuff with them. Stuff, in fact, is