Storage Units in Popular Culture

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November 18th, 2015


When you think of a self-storage unit, “exciting” and “entertaining” probably aren’t the first words that come to your mind. However, pop culture is unpredictable, and trends can come from the most unexpected places. So it is with self-storage. Below, we discuss storage units in popular culture, so you can keep up with what, exactly, people are interested in when it comes to storage.

STORAGE UNITS IN POPULAR CULTURE


Storage units have become a popular culture subject mainly through television, both through reality series that focus only on self-storage and through episodes on other series, where visiting or emptying a storage unit results in comic surprises.Reality shows Reality television has taken storm, covering everything from child beauty pageants to truck stops to—you guessed it!—self-storage units. There are a few reality shows that have made self-storage relevant in pop culture . . .


Each of these shows plays on the auctioning aspect of self-storage units. When a person renting a unit fails to pay rent for a certain period of time, state laws usually dictate that the contents can be sold via auction. In these shows, “buyers” travel around their respective regions to find these unpaid units, bid on them, and then turn a profit on their contents.

Some of the units contain extremely valuable items. Others, not so much—just some clutter someone had forgotten about. The buyers do not ever know what exactly is inside the unit before purchasing it. This bit of mystery is why viewers usually enjoy these shows: you never know what someone is going to store in a storage unit.

Television Episodes Self-storage has also found its way into lone episodes of a few other television series. The plot lines usually play on people forgetting about items they’ve stored in the unit, or on the trope that you can fit just about anything into self-storage. A few examples are . . .

  • In Bob’s Burgers, the popular animated sitcom on the Fox network, a deceased family member’s old storage unit becomes the catalyst for action in the program’s season three holiday episode. The title character Bob and his family discover a person has been living in the storage unit for ages and must decide how to deal with him.
  • American Dad, also on the Fox network, features a storage unit in a season four episode. Here, one of the main characters—and extraterrestrial alien—tries to leave Earth in his spaceship which has been sitting in a storage unit.

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Looking to rent a secure, roomy, and accessible storage unit? Eastway Storage Center makes it easy for you. If you live in southwest Missouri, come check out our storage facilities. We have multiple unit sizes, ranging from cozy 5 x 10s to units large enough to store an RV (unfortunately, though, none of our units will fit a spaceship, nor can you live in them). And if you have items sensitive to extreme temperatures, we’ve got you covered with climate-controlled units. Give us a call today at 417-864-7867. We would be happy to help you find the right storage unit for your needs. We look forward to hearing from you!

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