You may recall last week's story of Brick House 319, the small split-level Main Line home once occupied by "Hoarder Bill," now owned (stuff and all) by couple John and Sue, who detail their experiences with the house, Bill, and his several tons of junk (including approximately 800 storage bins piled in the backyard) on their blog. "When we purchased Brick House 319," writes Sue, "it was in the contract that John and I would move all of Bill's belongings to his (multiple) storage units at our expense." Perhaps the most shocking thing about this story is that there is no real shocking thing about this story.
According to a recent article over on Curbed National, hoarding runs rampant both here and abroad, and there is no dearth of storage units in the United States these days. In fact, "the [self-storage] industry has 48,500 locations across the country, more than triple the number of McDonald's (14,350) restaurants."