How a Man Turned His Storage Unit Into a Cheap, but Illegal, Home

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These days, it’s a supreme challenge for most Americans to find an affordable four walls and a roof over their head. But not for everyone.

A Vancouver man, who goes by the moniker 007craft on Reddit, found a way to game the system. Let’s get this out of the way right now: It was most likely illegal and even quite dangerous. Nonetheless, he proudly claimed on Reddit that he lived in a 10-foot-square U-Haul storage unit for two months—for just over 400 bucks. And in a YouTube video he gave viewers a tour of the unit that he tricked out with a double-size bed, big-screen TV, love seat, hot plate, toaster oven, and makeshift sink with running water.

He rigged electricity into his unit and used the facility’s Wi-Fi. When he needed to go to the bathroom, he used the customer toilets in the facility. And he showered at the gym or community center.

“It’s quite convenient living here, actually,” he said in the video. “I have all the amenities you’d find in an apartment, just in a very tiny space.”

He moved there after giving up his apartment to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. When he returned, he found himself homeless (shocker!) with all of his belongings in storage.

“[I] realized I had enough space to set up my bed and TV and would be a bit more comfortable living there than in my car for what could be a few months,” he continued on Reddit. “Also I wanted to do it for fun.”

But before any cash-strapped readers get any ideas, they should realize this practice is no more legal in most of the U.S. than it is in Vancouver. Storage unit facilities are simply not designed to house people. Therefore, they typically violate a host of local building codes designed to keep inhabitants safe. In particular, homemade electricity systems have an unfortunate tendency to cause fires and burn down buildings.

“If someone tries to rig something up so they could get power to use a little cookstove or a little propane heater … [in an] enclosed space, it could cause an explosion or kill them,” says Susan Rea, manager of the Meyer Park Storage Center, a nearly 400-unit facility based in Houston.

That’s why, upon learning that a man was living among all the hundreds of units crammed with stored Christmas ornaments and seasonal clothing, the owners of the place didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mats.

“This individual was caught and immediately evicted from the facility,” U-Haul spokesman Jeff Lockridge told CBC News. “U-Haul has procedures in place to detect anyone attempting to break the law and live in a storage locker unit.”

Realtor.com® reached out to the man as well as the storage facility company, but neither immediately responded to requests for comment.

Reddit user 007craft claimed that the staff there knew about him. They “loved” him, he wrote on Reddit, because he helped customers with moving and was something of a security presence there. However, he said, he kept his living situation on the down low with customers.

“If you’re going to live in a storage unit, you’re going to need to be as invisible as you possibly can be. You basically need to be ghost,” he says in the YouTube video. “If anybody finds out you’re here, that’s when you start running into trouble.”

Most real estate experts say the prohibition against tenants living in storage areas is well-founded. Most regional building codes require homes to have more than one entrance/exit, even if the second is a fire escape, according to real estate attorney Robert Pellegrini of PK Boston. There are also plumbing and electrical codes that need to be met.

Living in a storage unit isn’t all that uncommon, says Rea. “It definitely happens, especially if they rent a storage unit in a facility that does not have individual door alarms,” she says.

Maybe that’s why her company has alarms that log when someone enters and exits the facility. If anyone is in their unit for more than 90 minutes, the front desk is notified immediately.

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