These are slightly higher end, and from what I've seen they go for $2-3000. But still yes, it is ridiculous, and the company wont offer them for sale per the current contract! For convenience sake he'd rather pay the monthly fee than haul all his junk out, get them to pick the container up, buy new ones, and put all his cheap useless junk back in.

It's maddening!

Shipping container costs went up after covid, but still, at their peak you could buy one for ~$5k, $500/month is insane rental price especially if he never moves it.

I looked up prices for 40ft container: pre-covid: Under $2,000, Peak Pandemic (2020-2021): >$8,000; 2022-2024: prices falling, Current: $2,300

The cheap ones are damaged or may be leaky, so they aren't necessarily good options for anything that you want to stay clean, dry, and rodent-free.

My friend got one for free, along with some miscellaneous office furniture inside of it (mostly useless, but some very solid pieces from the mid 1980s or so).

We use it as emergency shelter and camping supplies storage on his rural land.

The major pain of shipping containers is transporting it to its place of destination and not having the local municipality throw a fit about it (they really don't like unpermitted stuff).

Renting one for such long term seems like 10x worse than renting an internet router.

His storage unit may have HVAC and electricity, plus is paying for some warranty of security.

you also need to factor in other things, like sentimental value (may be very high), rarity of some things, and catastrophic events "insurance" (e.g. Covid or similar events where obtaining some things is not guaranteed).

Hoarding can be at least somewhat motivated by frugality: you never know what you'll end up needing someday, and you don't need to spend money on new stuff if you kept an old one around... somewhere...

I've heard stories of people who developed the habit of keeping virtually everything out of living through the Great Depression.

If by frugality you mean something more along the lines of minimalism then I agree

Yes, all together. He has 4, 20-footers with extra insulation.