Editor's note: This article was originally published in The Surveyor, YouGov America's email newsletter. It has been revised for publication here. Subscribe to The Surveyor for regular updates on YouGov's polling.
About one-third of Americans say they've ever rented a self-storage unit; 10% say they currently do.
Self-storage is used by a pretty broad cross-section of Americans. For example, self-storage units are rented by similar shares of men (11%) and women (9%), adults under 30 (11%) and those 65 and older (9%), those with college degrees (11%) and those without (10%), and those in low-income households (10%) and high-income households (11%).
There is one factor that is associated with big differences in self-storage use, and that's how cluttered people say their homes are. 23% of people in the most cluttered households rent a self-storage unit, compared to 8% of people in homes that aren't very cluttered and 7% in those that are not at all cluttered.
Those very cluttered homes aren't common — just 9% of all Americans describe their home as very cluttered, compared to 31% who say their homes are somewhat cluttered, 33% who say they're not very cluttered, and 23% who say they're not at all cluttered.
The 9% of Americans who live in "very cluttered" homes make up 21% of Americans who rent self-storage units.
YouGov's particular inspiration for this survey was a recent video explainer from Wendover Productions titled "How Self Storage Consumed America." But despite the rapid growth in the self-storage industry that Wendover chronicles, it doesn't appear to have sparked any significant backlash. Only 10% of Americans say self-storage businesses' impacts on their communities are very negative (2%) or somewhat negative (7%). In contrast, 33% describe the impact of self-storage businesses as very positive (9%) or somewhat positive (23%). Another 43% say self-storage has neither a positive nor a negative impact on their communities.
Even among Americans who have never used self-storage, about twice as many say they're positive (26%) than that they're negative (11%).
See the results of these polls:
- How cluttered is your home?
- Do you rent any self‑storage units?
- Do you think self‑storage businesses' impact on their communities is...?
Methodology: This Daily Questions survey was conducted online on November 14 - 17, 2025. among 28,488 U.S. adults. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, U.S. census region, and political party. The margin of error is less than 1 point.
Image: Getty (imaginima)
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