Peter Chu, a retired lawyer living in Portland, Oregon, pays nearly $US400 ($605) a month for his storage unit in Seattle, where he used to live. That rate has gone up by roughly $US150 since 2022.

Chu is caught in an industry that was booming a few years ago during the coronavirus pandemic but now finds it has built way too many rental units. As the industry cuts so-called street rates to entice new customers, its existing customers are paying substantially higher rates that are sometimes raised twice or more in a year.