In the 1960s Jim Knuppe was building apartments in the Bay Area around San Francisco. Apartments are cramped and usually do not have garages, and Mr. Knuppe soon noticed that his renters were frustrated by the lack of space for all their stuff. As he looked into the problem, Mr. Knuppe said he realized it wasn't just renters that had too much stuff; in fact most Americans were acquiring more possessions than their homes could ever hold. So in 1970 he purchased a small piece of land in Alameda and built California's first Self-Storage. People in California told Jim Knuppe he was nuts. They said, who will ever pay money just to use a ten-by-ten shed to store stuff? Nobody has that much stuff, they said.

In just a few weeks he rented out all the units he owned, so he opened another in Berkley, then San Pablo, Vallejo, San Leandro, Foster City, Colma, and Hayward. Soon Mr. Knuppe owned thousands of storage units up and down the California coast. He made millions simply giving people a place to store their stuff.

We sure like our stuff.