lawsuit,<\/a> filed in a New York state court in Manhattan, seeks full restitution and more than $5 million in civil penalties.<\/p>\nNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted on social media on Wednesday, saying, \u201cNew Yorkers are being squeezed everywhere, even just to store their stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe self-storage Wild West ends now,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection alleges Extra Space would \u201cquickly and often dramatically\u201d increase the prices of rental units after consumers moved their belongings into a unit, often without notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cQueens consumer Jean Kellman began renting an Extra Space self-storage unit for $290 per month in early 2025. She specifically chose Extra Space because of their advertised competitive, low cost. However, within just three months, Extra Space raised her rent to $479 (an increase of 165%), without any notice whatsoever,\u201d the lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n
The company is also accused of changing locks and threatening to auction belongings to \u201cextort\u201d consumers into paying higher rent prices or undisclosed late fees.<\/p>\n
Extra Space also often failed to maintain the advertised cleanliness standard of their facilities, leading to widespread vermin infestations, water damage and mold, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
In a statement provided to KSL, Extra Space Storage said it is aware of the complaint but disagrees with the claims being made.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have begun reviewing the 117 complaints submitted. These are from the approximately 60 properties in New York City that have served over 100,000 customers in that time. We are confident that we operate fully within the bounds of the law and remain committed to continuing to do so,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit further alleges that, along with unanticipated rent hikes, the poor conditions have cost consumers significant sums in estimated property damage, sometimes exceeding $100,000.<\/p>\n
One example of this, the lawsuit says, is Alex Rodriguez, who began renting a Bronx unit from Extra Space in October 2021 to store items he sold through his online business, along with personal belongings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t long before he began to see rats in his unit \u2014 both dead and alive \u2014 when he went to check on his belongings, and noticed that all his belongings seemed to have developed an unpleasant odor, as they were covered in rat feces and urine,\u201d said the lawsuit. \u201cFurthermore, he discovered that rats had ripped through all of his boxes and even the items inside the boxes, including his children\u2019s toys and clothes, and his own clothing, including expensive hats and shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2023, Extra Space Storage completed the largest business acquisition ever<\/a> by a Utah company, merging with its rival, New York-based Life Storage, in an approximately $12-billion transaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City this week filed a lawsuit against Utah-based storage giant Extra Space Storage, accusing the company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[57047,57045,56115,9,24,11,10,57046],"class_list":{"0":"post-133611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-bait-and-switch","9":"tag-extra-space","10":"tag-extra-space-storage","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-predatory-business-practices"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}