Self-Storage is America’s Secular Purgatory—and You’re Paying the Rent
America has more self-storage facilities than Starbucks and McDonald’s combined. But we aren’t just renting metal boxes for our excess furniture; we’re paying a monthly subscription to avoid the grief of letting go. As boomers downsize and heirs reject antiques, these units have become secular purgatories—holding tanks for unresolved lives and the ghosts of who we used to be.